Quick status update

With the last entry in this blog being over 2 months old, I guess it’s time for a quick update. Actually, not much has changed. I am in the middle of my master’s thesis, lagging behind schedule as usual, and in parallel trying to get past my last exams for university. Doing both in parallel is not as much fun as you might think, especially with some other stuff looming behind.

I have successfully deployed a couple of customers in the last weeks, most notably the folks at SwooDoo. Their PHP-MySQL-AJAX-driven flight search engine is definitely one of those useful sites that I’m proud to host.

The second edition of our book, PHP-Sicherheit, is now under wraps, expanded by about 50 pages. I have written up a chapter on ext/filter (with a mixed recommendation) and expanded the web server filtering chapter by mod_parmguard. Other than that, Stefan has completely rewritten the chapter on “Hardening PHP” and we have changed a whole lot of stuff that was either outdated or included some tiny little errors. I wouldn’t go as far as to say you need to buy this book if you don’t have the first edition, but if you don’t have it at all, wait until late march to grab your copy.

Next weekend, I’ll be presenting some funny XSS stuff at the Heise booth on CeBIT (Hall 5, Booth E38). If someone wants to meet me at the fair, please drop me a line ASAP.

Apart from that, the next time I’ll be visible in the PHP community is the PHP Conference Spring Edition taking place in Stuttgart May 21 - 23. I’ll be presenting XSS stuff on the Webinale part of the conference. Due to time constraints, I won’t be present for more than 2 days, though - so probably I’ll leave straight after my session. Why is that? My thesis is due on the 31st, so go figure.