With desktop computers, laptop computers and mobile devices such as PDA’s, iPads, iPods and more still big targets for hacks and cyber criminals (or even the script kiddies), your IT Security should be a prime concern at both home and in a business whether that be a large or small enterprise.

Just one breach can make the difference between your computer being safe to use or your business network being shut down. Many hackers will sit on a target for some time without actually doing anything because they are monitoring your systems and gathering as much information as possible.

“Unlike the ‘hacker’ of the past, today’s cybercriminals are after your most important information such as your financial records, credit card details, user account information, possible customer data and even intellectual property,” says Brian Burch who is the vice president of marketing communications at Mountain View based in California.

Lets face it, the big companies have large security budgets (some really need to revise their security proceedures though as it can just be a waste of money if not implemented correctly), but for the home user and the small business, they have very little security in comparison and some small companies and home users have none at all.

So, here are some basic tips for Upgrading your PC Security for 2012:

1. Know what you need to protect.
Firstly, before you can realise what type of security you need, you must first look at the information you have on your systems, what is stored and how it is used then protect those areas accordingly. Having no password protection on such things as mobile devices can be a real pain in the neck if the wrong person were to pick it up.

2. Force yourself to use strong passwords.
Creating passwords with at least 8 characters or more using a combination of letters, numbers and special symbols (e.g., # $ % ! ?) will help make your passwords more difficult to break even using advanced software such as dictionary attacks.

3. Encrypt confidential information.
Use encryption software for your computers, laptops and even mobile devices. That way if someone does gain access to your system they will not be able to open the files. Even finding your lost mobile device if encrypted can deter even the most knowledgable of cybercriminals.

4. Use a reliable security solution.
So many companies and home users do not use good security software. There are plenty of free programs on the market that do not do much good for your system. If you invest a couple of pounds a year into a great security software package you can at least sleep at night even if you do not use step 3 above.

5. Stay up-to-date.
I know staying up to date can be a headache especially when your systems can have so many different software packages running on them. But I know even my own close family members do not keep software packages updated because they can not be bothered, or some conflict might happen which they do not have the confidence to deal with and find a solution for. My advice would be to Google your solution because if you have a conflict, there will be other people that have come across the same issues and there will be a work around for it.

6. Educate yourself, your household members, employees.
Learn about internet security and how to effectively protect your information. Using social networking sites, and the many applications that come with them can be very detrimental to your security. I know I personally do not use any application on Facebook because they are mainly developed by people like you and me. You can not control what actually happens to your details, what information they are actually using and in my opinion Facebooks policy on development and security needs to be revised asap. (In my opinion even Google is constantly infecting many users systems because of the lack of policies in place that monitor the links to roge sites, images that have hidden processes inside them)

So now lets look at the basics of a typical system to create a stronger defence against potential cybercriminals. We all know that hacking is one of the most discussed topics in the world today. By taking a few simple steps you can immediately reduce your chances of being the target.

Selection of Anti-Virus:
Stage one of any secured system should be anti-virus, so selecting a good anti-virus is really a must. For general users who just use their pc for the most common of routines such as browsing, movies and listening to music a free anti-virus should be ideal for you. In my opinion Avast and AVG are great tools to have running on your system.

Take note that there are so many FAKEFREE anti-virus programs on the internet today. I have had dealings with certain companies that offer security programs which I have examined and I can tell you all the they do is monitor your system and send the information back to the company. (I will not mention any names for legal reasons, but trust me, one of them has over 3.4 million users)

For those who deal with more intense use such as online banking, purchases of goods, making online payments, donations, paid subscriptions or even general online services should really invest in a professional complete Internet Security Suite. Notice that even online banks are now offering free security software strictly for dealing with online banking security issues.

The worst case scenario is that you login to your online bank to only find out that the site you just entered your details into was infact a replica of your bank and now they have all your credentials. The software offered by banks checks to see if you are connected to their own servers using their own domains, checking for redirects and hidden routines and processes, making sure your data is encrypted using Secure Socket Layers. Only when they have ticked all the boxes will you be able to enter your details. (Bare in mind that if you have a key logger running on your system initiated by a cybercriminal then your details can be gained that way)

What about Firewalls:
Again for general users a free firewall is a good choice. The following are some good and reputed firewalls which you can opt for. I suggest you do not just use your operating system firewall as these are generally the ones that get attacked first. (Give your potential hacker a surprise when they open your pc door)

• Online Armour
• Zone Alarm (my favourite to suggest)
• Comodo Firewall
• Private Firewall

For those users who need additional protection because of the type of things carried out on their system can opt in for the paid versions of the above and be even more protected in realtime.

Virtual PC or Sandbox:
At present, we all recieve files (maybe excutable ones) from friends, family and colleages but can we really trust that file? How do we know that their system has not been infected? Facebook accounts for instance have been hacked many times in my family and friends circle and I know because I get a message from their accounts telling me to open a certain file, view a certain picture, or log in to such a site using facebook details to gain access to images and additional friends. (note that these type of attacks are generally asking you to leave Facebook domain and use one of there own which is a no no in my eyes)

A good example would be Sandboxie which is FREE. This great software can allow you to open up files received in a virtual environment which will safeguard your current system. Run all your received files using a virtual PC or sandbox and you’ll keep yourself safe against all kinds of malwares including but not limited to viruses, spywares and trojans.

Visit any untrusted website and open any untrusted file in virtual PC Emulator. Oracle Virtual Box is a good choice and if you want some real professional features you can opt for VMWare.

What about keyboard protection:
The best free keyboard protection software is called Key Scrambler. This software will encrypt your keystrokes and prevent them from being stolen by spyware, trojans and online malicious web applications (and there are plenty around trust me, and many on your everyday use social networking sites)

Your Web Browser:
Now, so many browsers are out there on the market place today and most are free to download and use. We all know that currently Mozilla Firefox is not only the worlds most trusted browser but also a web browser with several addons and pluggins. Just be carefull with all those addons because again most are created by people like me and you and they can not be trusted to do what they say on the tin.

Microsoft Internet Explorer was the most popular and according to statistics still is the mostly used browser choice. We all know only too well that this is not the most secure browser (in my opinion). I personally advise people to use either Firefox or Google Chrome. Firefox can be very slow and use much memory for some reason with its recent updates, so if you find Firefox not so smooth, then go for Google Chrome again with plenty of addons. (again watch out for those fake ones)

So, some last pieces of advice for Upgrading your PC Security 2012 by Voice of Shaun Ellerton is protect yourself from session hacking and cookie stealing by never opening links received in emails, the links mostly track your visit and you will get more links via emails because the senders know you click them, avoid spam links and images that get constantly posted on social networking sites, like this, follow that, and try your best to not use a computer in a shared environment because that will leave you vulnerable like you have never realised.

If you want to know more about how I use your data on this site (V.O.S.E) then follow the link below and it will guide you through how I use cookies and what I use them for. It will also give you links to important sites and links to browser instructions on how to clear history and cookies on your system.

Privacy and Cookies Policy

Well, to celebrate my birthday I thought I would provide a small function that will allow you to easily work out an age using a Date of Birth. This can be a little tricky if you do not consider the months and days that have already passed.

You cannot just subtract the current year from the birth year because that could give a false age if the date has not already passed and we all know how sensitive we can all be about our age.

So, lets look at what we have to do first. Lets create a form so our users can fill in their Date of Birth and then we can use those values to get the age in years that would be true.

<!-- User form begins -->
<form method="POST" action="">
  <p>
    Enter Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY):<br />
	<input type="text" size="2" name="day" value="" />
        &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<input type="text" size="2" name="month" value="" />
        &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<input type="text" size="4" name="year" value="" />
  </p>
  <p>
    <input type="submit" name="birth" value="Calculate" />
  </p>
</form>
<!-- User form ends -->

As you can see above all I have created is a simple form that has three input fields, each with their own name so we can call those values when the form has been submitted. Then we have the button named ‘calculate’.

Now, lets get into the programming of this great little function which can be used on forums to display someones age, or work out an age before entering data into the database.

First, because I have decided to use a form to grab the details from the user, (which you could just grab the DOB from the database if you had it, but you will have to explode that into seperate values before you can actually use it here) I need to check to see whether the form itself has been submitted first. This will allow us not to run the age calculator function until the calculate button has been pressed.

if (isset($_POST['birth'])) { // checks if form has been submitted

In the above form I have named the form ‘birth’. That will allow us to have more forms on the same page if required and then check to see if only a certain form has been submitted. (In this case we only need one form)

Next we need to grab those values that the user entered into our form and save them as variables to use within our age calculator function:

$y = htmlentities($_POST['year']); // grabs the users year of birth
$m = htmlentities($_POST['month']); // grabs the users month of birth
$d = htmlentities($_POST['day']); // grabs the users day of birth

Great, we now have those details that the user submitted. You will need to think about the security of your form depending on how you use this data. I have chosen to use ‘htmlentities‘ to stop any HTML input from being processed by the user input. I am not saving this data to a database but if you are then I suggest you look at using something like ‘mysql_real_escape_string‘ to make sure you do not get SQL Injection which can really cause you problems and also ‘htmlspecialchars‘.

Now we have those details, we can now begin to code this little function. First, I need to actually create a function:

function age_calculator() // starts the age calculator function
{ // function start

Now, because I set variables outside the function I need to make sure we can use these variables inside the function so I need to set those three user input variables as global:

global $y, $m, $d; // grabs outside function variables to use within function

Now, the next process will be to calculate the year, month and day from our actual (current) year, month and day. So we need to set the current year, month and day then subtract our DOB values from it like so:

$y_dif = date("Y") - $y; // subtract current year from birth year
$m_dif = date("m") - $m; // subtract current month from birth month
$d_dif = date("d") - $d; // subtract current day from birth day

Now we have our difference values between the current year and the DOB year plus we also have the difference for the month and day too. We can not just subtract the current year from the DOB year. The reason for this is because it will always say you are one year older than you actually are unless within the current year your birthday has already been and gone.

Lets just take a quick look at this; I was born in 1982 and the current year of writing this article is 2012. If we subtract 1982 from 2012 we would actually get 30. But lets say my birthday was in May not April. What would happen then? I would actually be 29 years still (current month being April), but the calculation would state 30 because we have not yet considered the months and days that have passed or not passed already.

If I am confusing you then just stay with me for a little longer as I explain this to you. Lets say my birthday is in May but the current month is April. That means as numeric values the current month would be ’04′ and my birth month would be ’05′. If we subtract the current month from my birth month we would get -1 as a value because that month has not arrive yet. So I would actually still be 29 years old not 30. If the month has already passed we would end up with a positive integer not a negative integer. (whole number)

So, if we are taking into consideration the month to make our calculation more precise and usable, we also need to take into consideration the days too. So if the current day was the 10th of May, but my birthday was on the 20th of May, my age would still be 29 years old as that date has not arrived yet. We would have a negative integer of -10. If the date had already passed then again we would get a positive integer.

I hope you are still following me and I am not rambling on here for no reason.

So, what we need to do is first check to see if the month is a negative integer because if it is, then that month has not arrived yet (as explained in the above explanation):

if ($m_dif < 0) { $y_dif -- ; } // month not arrive yet reduce year by one

So we state that if month difference is a negative integer (less than 0) we need to reduce the year difference by a value of 1. That will calculate for the additional year that gets added when just simply subtracting the current year from your birth year.

As for the day, we need to state something a little bit more complex like so:

elseif (($m_dif == 0) && ($d_dif < 0)) { $y_dif -- ; }
// same month but day has not arrived yet reduce year by one

Here, we are checking to see if the current month is the same as the birth month. If so, we need to check the day and see if it has already passed or not. We set a condition using the ‘&&’ (and) statement and stipulate that two conditions must be met before we reduce the year.

If month difference is equal to 0 (meaning current month is the exact same as birth month) AND day difference is a negative integer (which we know if it is a negative integer that date has not passed yet) we subtract a value of 1 from the difference year variable.

We have set two conditions here and if these conditions are not met then the actuall age will be the difference between the current year and the year of birth. Current year subtract birth year would be true and we would not have to calculate for the additional year by completing this calculation.

Next, we need to return the a value so the function can be called and have a value when the calculation has been completed, then we need to end the function:

return $y_dif; // returns value from function to echo on screen
} // function end

Great, now all we have to do is end the if statement and print the details on the screen like so:

?>
<hr /> <!-- creates line across screen  -->
Your Calculated Age: <?php echo age_calculator();
//calls function and displays result on screen
}
?>

That is it. Now, some people have asked me if they can do the same thing with ‘microtime()’ and ‘time()’ etc in seconds which would involve less code (about three lines to be honest). The only issue with ‘time()’ and others using seconds is that the statement will only go back in seconds as far as 1970. So if your birth year is further back in time which many will be, then you are going to run into issues right away with your function.

The above way is a great simple function that can be called upon anytime you need to work out an age from the DOB.

Just so you have the function as a stand alone code here it is:

function age_calculator() // starts the age_calculator function
{ // function start
global $y, $m, $d; // grabs outside function variables to use within function
$y_dif = date("Y") - $y; // subtract current year from birth year
$m_dif = date("m") - $m; // subtract current month from birth month
$d_dif = date("d") - $d; // subtract current day from birth day
if ($m_dif < 0) { $y_dif -- ; } // month not arrive yet reduce year by one
elseif (($m_dif == 0) && ($d_dif < 0)) { $y_dif -- ; }
// same month but day has not arrived yet reduce year by one
return $y_dif; // returns value from function to echo on screen
} // function end

As this is only an example showing how you can easily calculate the age from using the date of birth considering the current month and current day, I have not coded how to make sure your user only enters the correct data in each input field. I suggest you use a dropdown selection with the years, months and days in numeric values. You can use a php loop to display all this instead of coding every single value from 1 – 31, 1 – 12 and for how many years you wish your script to go back. I would suggest 100 years max as most people unfortunately will no longer be with us after that time has passed. You could also display the years starting from the most recent so most users would not have to scroll down so far to reach their birth year.

Just as an added extra, I have included below an example of using a loop to display the numbers required within a dropdown option, but I have also provided a link to my great guides on using loops above:

<select>
<?php
for ($i = 1; $i <= 31; $i++)
{
    echo "<option value='".$i."'>".$i."</option>";
}
?>
</select>

I used the form example but you can just change this function anyway you like to meet your needs. I would suggest adding a function variable so you place a variable within the function calling line, then explode your value into separate values to be processed. If you need any assistance with this just mention so in the comments and I will gladly provide an explode function for you all.

I hope you have enjoyed this PHP Age Calculator Function and I am sure I will enjoy my 30th Birthday

What are the the proposals (which will allow law enforcers/government to monitor email, social networks, instant messaging and even online games).

The government said that police and security services need to be able to monitor all online communications “to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public”. Come one, you really think that terrorism has not reached a whole new technical level yet?

Surely, monitoring of this magnitude and scale will require UK internet service providers such as Virgin, o2 and BTInternet to install systems to intercept and analyse internet traffic using deep packet inspection (DPI).

So what is DPI? DPI can be used to monitor everything you do online, from the web pages you visit to the messages you send to your friends. However the government said it plans to implement systems that will only monitor “communications data”, such as who you talked to online and when, and not the message content. Can we really see the government sticking with this protocol for long? Will your content really be safe from prying eyes?

Another major factor here is that DPI-enabled monitoring requires “substantial” ongoing investment, and surely such a system will need constant intergration with already existing sites as they change and new technology as its developed.

It is not a case that this system can not be done, because it can be. Whether or not this is a great way to waste tax payers money is the question. This system will require extremely expensive equipment and a great deal of babysitting.

Now we can all get really worried especially if you are none tech savvy but bypassing such a system will not be hard to accomplish at all. If you encrypt your internet connection, for instance using https-enabled sites to communicate this would hide who you are talking to and what you are saying.

Now given that piece of information above, how much use would a system like this be in meeting the government’s aims of ‘Monitoring terrorist groups and serious organised criminal gangs’? Lets face it, the government will not be targeting the hardcore people who actually know a thing or two about internet and communication security, infact they will just be monitoring the ‘wannabes’ in their bedrooms sat up until early ours.

What I do not like about the idea is the fact that the government could actually monitor everyone beforehand on the off-chance that they might be a naughty boy or girl. This really is Big Brother at its best and I certainly do not mean the TV show that people tend to make fools out of themselves on and waste much valuable time which belongs to the ‘public eye’ (but I guess you have a choice whether or not to watch it).

At this moment in time many many people already know that the governments in China and Iran reportedly use DPI systems to monitor and censor internet traffic and have been doing for quite some time now, but rest assured because the UK government has said that it will “ensure that the use of communications data is compatible with the government’s approach to civil liberties”. Well, thats alright then, you can now monitor me for as long as you want and record/archive every person and every single tred of content that I ever communicate… … NOT!

For those who are really touched by this new Law Draft the government will publish the full details of its communication intercept plans by the end of this month, but has also stated that it wants legislation in place by the end of June 2015. (according to Home Office documents published in January)

It is ironic because our previous Labour government proposed a similar system using a central database to track phone, text, email and internet use, but it was dogged by concerns over the project’s technical feasibility and cost along with the concept that ‘will it really do what is says on the tin?’.

Check out the Home Office Published Documents.

So, the question next to ask is: are programming skills high on the wish list of startup entrepreneurs? One answer: Investors seem to take a liking to those in-the-coding-know. During the Q & A portion of a panel called “Investor Spotting,” recently held in America, it was witnessed that one investor interrupted an entrepreneur who was trying to pitch his startup idea. “Do you code?” he asked. Big pause. “No,” the entrepreneur said, dejectedly. “I wish.”

The market for online classes and night-school courses in programming is hot, according to the Media Reports. A number of startups — including the touted Codeacademy — are catering to this new crop of coder wannebes, the media reports. The thinking is that with so much business gravitating toward the Internet, it’s critical that today’s entrepreneurs learn the language of the computer — or at least enough that they won’t be left behind.

Having ran a number of companies myself I know how costly it can be to have to employ coding staff or outsource that role. If your budget is there thats fantastic but most business startups need (and in most cases must) keep their initial startup costs down. So this is not really an option and thus can begin to leave these newly formed business ideas lagging behind its already developed competition.

I personally for every company I have been involved with have developed some form of code whether that be a content management system (in house use) or ranging to the more commonly used websites for the business to actively market themselves online (which most have involved some form of customer account system online).

Of course, programming skills aren’t everything — and startup entrepreneurs who don’t have them can still hire IT staff (if the budget allows) or outsource talent if need be. Many entrepreneurs with bright ideas but minimal computer skills pair up with technical co-founders, too. But I say why sacrifice up to 50% of your profits for your great idea (if not more) just because you have not managed to find the time to learn even the most basics of such languages as HTML, CSS, PHP & MySQL.

In my experience yes, these languages can be very scary at first, but just like everything else ‘persistence (coding) pays dividends’. By learning such basics, as time progresses your basic skills will become more complex and form a solid foundation that will be a pinnacle of your future business developmental and progressional needs.

One item left out of all the recent discussion about coding: Sure, you can teach an entrepreneur how to code. But can you teach a programmer to be an entrepreneur? That’s a much trickier talent to learn. If you have to have one or the other, entrepreneurial abilities still seem far more valuable than fluency in such coding languages as HTML.

Why not have your say below and join in the poll and answer the following questions:

So what do I mean by that? As a small business owner using the web to reach customers, you’ve surely been implementing search engine optimization tactics to make sure your site turns up high in web searches. But just when you might feel like you’re starting to get the hang of this SEO thing, it appears that search giant Google might start penalizing websites that are over-optimized. You say WHAT?

So what factors might play a role in an over optimization penalty? Cutts outlined several signals that would qualify as too much SEO, such as “too many keywords on a page” and “exchange way too many links.”

The tricky part is determining what constitutes too many keywords or links. While the penalty has not yet been put in place, you can still take steps to make sure your business’s site doesn’t end up being labeled “overly optimized”. I suppose in a way it does make sense as the world wide web is moving swiftly into the Semantics way of browsing and giving meaning to the content.

So by doing this Google can make sure that you are viewing results that will one, be about your chosen search term, two be more area specific, three, provide that great user experience and four, not provide you with a small article that just wants to gain some hits so they can spam you with adverts about none relevant products and services that bear no interest to you and your chosen search term.

So what steps can we advise now this information has come to light that will enable you to stay light on your feet while not cracking all the EGG SHELLS (it’s nearly Easter folks):

Write your article content for people first (your viewers) and search engines second – Site content written specifically with SEO in mind is often clunky, difficult to read, annoying and not very subject specific. Focus on providing content that’s useful to your readers/viewers/potential customers and trust that links and search engine results will follow which leads us back to organic search results which are based on your content and not how many times your site shows a certain keyword.

Focus on link quality over quantity – So many people leap into the world of online marketing and think, right I need to get to number one NOW. It is not that easy and if a search engine company tells you it is then they are LYING TO YOU! Just because you can purchase say 5’000 links for under £15 pounds does not mean that you should. Again, if a search engine company actively supports this ring of links then steer well clear of them as Google and many other leading search engines will react to your defiance of the official rules of search engine engagement.

Pay attention to Google’s ’23 Questions’ – Though these questions were released in conjunction with last year’s Panda update, there’s no doubt that these stated quality parameters are still in effect. Focus on getting your site in line with these principles to avoid over optimization penalties Google could release and in my opinion will be doing just like the many other penalties they already have in place.

If you are not aware of the 23 Questions that Google steer your SEO development towards then you can view the list and all the many comments here: 23 Questions

Please bare in mind allot of the comments are referring to how you can decide who has the original content first and then talk about how not to list the copies in the search results. There are many issues with this scenario which I believe many of the commentors do not recognise. A couple being:

Everyone is entitled to post content that someone else may have created as long as they referrence to that content and/or attain permission to do so.

By using such things as ‘listing timestamp’ to find out who listed the content first does not allow for sites that originally created content but are not as popular with Google, so it takes longer for Google to get back round to their site, which allows other more popular sites to get it on Google first. Or you may have content that has been created but scheduled to be released on a certain date and time, but it gets leaked (by someone who will no longer have their job hopefully) and then it goes on Google first. Then you have to contact the DMCA to file a report about it.

Now, I mention the Panda Update and we all know that when Google updates its algorithms ‘it has to be that some sites will go up and some will go down’ in ranking. So to find out more about this update take a look here:

Finding more high-quality sites in search

Of course, Google hasn’t announced anything specific yet and lets face it, Google rarely releases exact details about the internal operation of its current and future algorithms. To stay up-to-date on what Google does next, you can monitor Google’s Webmaster blog for details about potential over optimization penalties as they’re rolled out.

To put it in perspective, Oxford University announced its own Cyber Security Centre on Monday as “an umbrella for current research activity worth in excess of £5m” – getting close to twice the EU Center’s budget. The reality is then, the EU’s Cybercrime Centre, with a budget of €3 million, will not have a huge new direct effect on the fight against international digital crime especially if the loss to England alone is about £30 billion on an annual basis.

So if it has been given such a low budget what is its primary purpose – to provide a ‘focal point’ for all of the existing national and private cybercrime centers around Europe, and beyond.

The primary purpose of the new centre is to disrupt the operation of organized crime, says the EU. But the question is again to refer to the budget assigned for this project which would tell us that it may not be able to perform this duty directly within its own resources. Instead, says the EU, “the Centre will gather information from a variety of sources – not only law enforcement authorities – to support investigations conducted by Member States’ authorities.” In security terms, the new EU Cybercrime Center can be best viewed as a ‘correlation engine’ able to find new relationships in Europe’s cybercrime Big Data and draw new conclusions.

So does this mean that Cybercriminals should now be getting ichy feet and look at joining the side of good and not the side of evil? In order to have this effect there will be two tasks here: firstly to develop an acceptable standard reporting methodology; and then to ensure it is used.

We all know that systems are put in place that help protect our online security and potential identity theft, banking theft and more, but the reality is for this to work people must actually use this new system and report cybercriminal activity.

By providing a better means for correlating and disseminating data between private industry, the various specialist European police forces including Interpol and the Met’s new cybercrime hubs together with the European intelligence agencies such as CESG, this small underfunded office within Europol could have a major impact in the fight against cybercrime.

At this moment in time the industry as a whole does sway in favour of the criminal groups that currently exist and lets face it, they are never going to go away for good are they. So if this swing of benefit is currently in the direction of the cybercriminals, then by enabling the correlation of data from throughout Europe, the EU Cybercrime Center could return it to a symmetrical battleground meaning that the odds are even. You don’t just have a strong side and a weak side, but an even keel across the board. This in turn could mean the cybercriminals can not just easily attack from one side (would have been the weaker side) and rain down terror on the unsuspecting security technician.

Go 1 includes some bug fixes, but it’s not a major redesign, though added support for the Windows opens the language up to a broader group of programmers — you’ll also find distributions for Linux, FreeBSD and OS X. Google gives you its word that Go 1 programs “will continue to compile and run without change… on a time scale of years,” so you can rest assured that your efforts will not be in vain.

There’s also a new version of the Google App Engine SDK, which utilizes none other than Go. It’s time to start coding! But my concern is will this GO language be yet another language that my fellow coders will have to learn and develop within and consider possible intergration issues with? Do we really need all these different languages and why can’t all these companies not just put all their ‘eggs in one basket’ (I know, it is nearly Easter though) and develop a really fantastic one standing language above and beyond any other.

The answer would be: they each are businesses and therefor must produce a profit to stay within the game, so having their own language which only they own rights to can make them profits and gain more of the developmental market share.

The Official GO Blog

The Offical GO Project

The Official GO Documents

The Official GO Packages

“Android is terrifying,” ESET’s David Harley told media almost a year ago. His concern was that the open source nature of the platform and the Android app market allows almost anyone to develop and distribute almost anything they want.

Now his concern is proven. Symantec claims that virus Android.Counterclank has infected between 1 million and 5 million Android users, “and may well be the largest infection on Android in its short career.” Counterclank is a modification of the existing Tonclank malware. It can be controlled remotely and is primarily used to steal information.

Counterclank is a trojan being distributed primarily as malware attached to Android games, although there seems no reason for it not to be attached to almost any popular download. The malicious code is grafted on to the application in a package called ‘apperhand’. Symantec explains that when the package is executed, a compromised Android will show a service running with the same name. “Another sign of infection,” it adds, “is the presence of the Search icon above on the home screen.”

A list of 13 infected apps is published on Symantec’s site, and it promises to add more as it discovers them. If you have downloaded one of these apps, the advice is to remove it and run an anti-malware program.

The problem is largely thought to be indicative of more to come. “Without a middleman to ensure consumers can trust the applications being downloaded, expect these type of incidents to grow and continue,” comments Imperva’s Rob Rachwald. “Google may need to rethink their distribution model for apps.” It is a problem that the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) highlighted in its report: Appstore security – 5 lines of defence against malware. One of the five recommendations specifically suggests app review prior to availability.

This attack was targeted through the official Android Market; but as Marnix Dekker, application security officer at ENISA, says, “It would be easy to set up a rogue appstore, run it from some obscure country, fill it with some infected apps. It would also be relatively easy to trick users into installing from there.”

So if you have any of the apps installed listed on this website: Infected Apps the be sure to remove them and run a malware app (security apps) to clean your phone. Keep your eye on this website link for a more updated list as time moves on.

He has his reasons for not wanting to use Javascript and I am not going to enter a debate about it although Javascript can create some fantastic interactions on your site can indeed pose so many threats too.

So here is a little PHP Snippet that will show you how to code a function that will count the words within a variable and echo the amount found. I use the term ‘Functions’ and we will be creating this snippet by the use of a function. If your not familiar with ‘Functions’ then please check out my other articles regards these: (will open in new tab for you)

PHP Coding Made Easier – Using Functions
PHP Coding Made Easier – Using Variables in Functions

Great, now you have looked at the use of functions if required lets get going on this simple yet effective way of counting words without the use of Javascript and the rest.

First of all we need to create the start of the function and we are going to call our function ‘word_count’:

<?php
    function word_count($sentence){

Notice I have used a variable called $sentence which will capture the sentence we are going to count when we place it between the brackets. This will allow us to do things with it in our function.

Next we need to exlode() our $sentence variable and count how many words have been typed. So how can we count how many words there are? Well, think about it logically, what always comes between words in a sentence the is always going to present no matter what sentence is typed? [SPACES].

So what we can do is explode() by using the space between the words and that will give us an array that we can perform other things with. So lets get that code done now:

$array = explode(" ", $sentence);

So I have defined a variable called $array which remember has been defined within a function so if you need to use this variable outside of this function you would have to make it a global variable.

We explode() our $array variable and the conditions are {explode by space} using our {$sentence} variable. So we are saying Mr PHP, can you please find all the spaces in my $sentence variable and let me do something else with it please?.

Ok, thats simple enough, so now we need to return the count (amount) using the return function within our function:

return count($array);
    }

So now we have our function that will count our spaces in a given variable and then we can display the result for this example PHP Snippet. So now we call our function like so:

$words = word_count("Welcome to the Voice of Shaun Ellerton");

We assign a variable $words and use our newly created function to count a sentence. Notice I have just typed a sentence in here but you can use a variable if required like so:

$words = word_count($vose);

This way you can grab the $_POST from a user submitted form and count the entries within that variable. So for my little example all I am going to do is echo the result on the screen so we can see the actual count of the words:

echo $words;
?>

Thats it. We have a function to count the words within a sentence or variable of your choice without the use of Javascript. For my friends request, he could now just compare the value of $words with his chosen limit by performing a simple calculation:

if ($words >50) { echo "Too many words used!"; }
else { // Process the information
}

If you have any comments or suggestions as to the use or further development of this little PHP Snippet then please leave a comment below and as always I will get back to you about it.

Open Digital cites a report dated 16 January which suggests that corporate use of Google cloud services under standard terms violates Norwegian data protection laws. In what it calls a ‘Notice of Decision’ the Inspectorate states that the EU-US Safe Harbor agreement does not adequately guarantee data protection in the face of the US Patriot Act. The Patriot Act gives the US government the right and ability to demand personal data on any person anywhere in the world if that data is held anywhere in the world by a US company – such as Google.

The Decision apparently follows a complaint from an inhabitant of Narvik. Narvik is using Google’s cloud services (specifically its email services), and the inhabitant demanded to know what data protection safeguards were in place. The Inspectorate’s conclusion is that there are insufficient safeguards to comply with Norway’s Personal Data Act 2000.

The Inspectorate’s report points out that the US Patriot Act was enacted after the Safe Harbor agreement was established, and that it “must be considered to be a challenge with regard to protection of privacy, even within the Safe Harbor scheme.” It further concludes that it cannot see “how any data processor outside the [European] Community that does not specify which country the data will be processed can comply with the requirements for adequate protection under § 29 of the Personal Data Act.”

Open Digital points out that Norway is not a full member of the EU, “but as a member of the European Economic Area, complies to all relevant EC directives.” Since the EC tends to fall in line with US wishes, it is unclear whether this ‘Notice of Decision’ will have any serious effect either within Norway or Europe generally. Open Digital “assumes some complex international diplomacy is in play with respect to US-Norway relations, with the US making a fuss about a perceived or actual problem with copyright infringement and Norway making a stand against a perceived or actual problem with overarching anti-terrorist legislation.”