Javascript try/catch/finally

I’ve found that many developers (including myself) that have been coding javascript for some time don’t realize that javascript added the try/catch pattern from Java quite a while ago and that all modern browsers support it.

Here’s the standard pattern, the ‘finally’ of course is optional for when you require it.

try{
// put your code here that may experience a runtime error/exception, i will show division by zero in this example
var x = 1;
alert(x/0);
}
catch(e){
if(e instanceof Error){
alert(‘an error has occurred:name=’ + e.name + ‘|message=’ + e.message);
} else {
alert(‘an unknown exception has occurred’);
}
}
finally{
alert(‘now we are done’);
}

A little more on this… like in Java, there are types of Errors, and you can rely upon ‘instanceof’ to determine them appropriately, here are a few of the common types in JavaScript 1.5:

  • EvalError
  • RangeError
  • ReferenceError
  • SyntaxError
  • TypeError
  • URIError

REFERENCE:
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/JavaScript/Exception-Handling-in-JavaScript-Using-Multiple-Exception-Handlers/

Cheers

Linux/Windows file cleanup

If you make heavy (or even typical) use of your computer, you’ll often notice that it just doesn’t seem as fast as it once was. For a slight increase in performance, disk space and to generally remove some of the ‘temporary’ files/cruft that are routinely written to disk you have a few options.

Here are a few of my current favorites for doing ‘Spring Cleaning’ on my computers… BleachBit and CCleaner

BleachBit is available on all major platforms (Windows, OS/X, Linux).

HTTP Session Hijacking (Firesheep)

This topic, and Firefox add-on have received a lot of press lately, as such I figured that I’d capture some comments on the topic. HTTP Session hijacking is nothing new, anyone with the ability to monitor your non-secured network traffic can do this with little effort… what’s happened here is that there are now some really simple to use tools to do the job.

In the past, someone would have to passively monitor your network traffic with a tool like WireShark, and all they’d really have to do is wait for you to access a website to watch the ‘HTTP Cookies’ (or even a URL that contains a ‘session id’). With that information, they simply need to use the same value that you do to essentially take over your session and your current state. Banks are particularly at risk for this, but in most cases they use HTTPS/SSL for all secure data including logins. Social websites such as Facebook and even GMail, often default to non-secure logins to maximize their server and network performance.

Best defense here… never use non-secure login forms, especially when using a public wireless (or wired) network.

Interesting enough, there’s now a Firefox add-on that monitors for usage of Firesheep on the network, unfortunately neither of these currently work in Linux… links below!

Flash Cookies / Website Storage

If you’ve been online at all in the last decade, you’ve heard of the “dangers” of HTTP Cookies. More nefarious and harder to remove are Flash Cookies as they are handled by a plugin/extension/addon to the browser and exist outside of the normal security settings.

To see or delete Flash data, you’ve got to visit the following URL:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

You will probably be suprised to see many of the sites listed, as Flash is often being used to present you with ads in addition to the interactive elements that you might expect.

REFERENCES: