A Web Developer’s Blog
This site uses the workbox package to manage a service worker which is needed for the site to meet the criterion of a Progressive Web App
I only really did this as practice - it’s not really needed for a static website.
Today I reviewed my setup and fine tuned it.
This is a small program I wrote to convert a twitter archive (which is a big ball of Javascript) to a Markdown file.
Since LastPass’ most recent security issues (do use a password manager but not LastPass) I’ve seen a lot of people online changing all their passwords and realising how bad the experience is.
For those of us with names which can be spelled in the limited ASCII alphabet the pain point is the password part - where the rules can be annoying but in the end we can work around them.
Today I saw a post Hello my name is St�phanie which highlights how there is a bigger problem for many people.
It all got me thinking : why do we (developers) do this ?
Read more ...Have you ever been involved in a project that has been running for months and now every time you have a discussion people say “we have done this already” ?
The problem is often that the discussions have not been documented - and the meetings need to be repeated.
So what are the best tools and processes to escape the meeting cycle and deliver quality?
Read more ...
Laravel has some really good features for setting database connections - but oddly this isn’t spelled out in the documentation.
Databases (especially in Docker containers) often come by default with a single, powerful, user account.
As a result all too often people run Laravel without considering the principle of least privilege.
By following a few simple steps we can enhance security.
As web developers we are used to people mostly using teh websites we build in teh way intended.
It can be hard to get into the mindset not just of what can go wrong but how what we have built can be subverted.
There are a lot of tools available to those who want to attack our websites - and I think it is worth web developers having some familiarity with these.
The tools themselves are legal - but should only be used where you have permission.
Read more ...As an industry we have to do better.
First we need to study common issues, security standards and processes.
It also helps to try a little ethical hacking to see things from the other side.
Most of what you read about securing PHP is how to write secure code - and that is really important.
In addition it helps to setup PHP on the server for best security.
There is plenty we can do to harden the setup without hurting the functionality we need.
The more layers we have in our security setup the better.
I’m staring a new PHP project and I wanted a clean docker image to work from.
I inherited one on my last project and wanted to improve image size, security and production alignment.
It’s amazing being able to get free TLS certificates instantly from Let’s Encrypt.
But they don’t provide certificates for localhost
You can generate, and trust, your own certificates and I’ve written up how to do that but honestly it’s not a trivial process.
Here is how to use Let’s Encrypt for local dev.