Jalaj P. Jha

Beginning of January saw posting of Tweaking Registry for Internet Explorer that turned into most viewed post on this blog. Internet Explorer (4 and above) allowed a lot of customization, a few of which are listed here.

Browsers are not generally allowed access to any part of the system except the cookies, but vulnerabilities do. So when you ask Can Registry be written by JavaScript, answer is YES. While writing this post it occurred to me that I should also post other security measures known to me and so came the next two posts.

Many of us writing small desktop applications are unaware of fact that though our database is password protected, we are disclosing it by hardcoding it in the application which requires as little as MS Word to get hold to it. This security concern was detailed in Protecting the Database

I found a nice little command line utility at Microsoft site that allows you to encode web script (server side ASP or client side VBScript/Jscript on IE). Protecting Web Scripts attempted at coding the same application with a user interface.

Google Toolbar version 4 above allowed developers to develop XML based code to modify Google Toolbar to provide buttons for own site. Custom Buttons on Google Toolbar shows a basic writeup on it.

All my applications had a similar feature a file selector using a textbox, button and common dialog control. So I thought if I can make a custom ActiveX control and the result was a control that I described in three parts Creating Custom ActiveX Controls, Creating Custom ActiveX Controls - 2, Creating Custom ActiveX Controls - 3.

My early programming experience was on BBC Microcomputer during my schools. After a 4 year gap I got to resume it on a PC with MS-DOS, COBOL, Dbase etc. The posts Starting again, with MS-DOS and dBASE, Database Mangement System described the experience.