data
21 Nov 2008
Google today released Google App Engine SDK 1.1.6 (announcement, download) which, among other things, brings with it datastore keys that you can sort and filter on.
This is a quick screencast to show you the data export solution I've created for Google App Engine that lets you backup your application's datastore and restore it either locally on your development machine or on the same Google App Engine application on the deployment environment or on a different Google App Engine application (which you can use as a staging environment).
Introducing Open Country Codes: easy to use ISO 3166 country codes for your apps.
Why are some things just much harder than they need to be? Finding a current, easy-to-use data source for populating a country selection box, for example.
Writing about secure passwords in Buzzword got me thinking about the state of security and user trust in Flash (and Flex)-based Rich Internet Applications in general. After giving it some thought, I concluded that we have a little more work to do if users are to be expected to have the same sort of trust in Flash-based RIAs as they do for JavaScript and HTML-based applications and web sites.
The key security issue I see with Flash applications, especially those that deal with sensitive information, is that the user has no way of knowing whether or not the application is communicating their sensitive data over a secure connection.