By design when we open an SSL connection in Java (e.g. through java.net.URL.openConnection(“https://….”)) the JSSE implementation of the SSL protocol performs few validations to ensure the requested host is not fake. This involves validation of the server’s X.509 certificate with the PKIX algorithm and checking the host name agains the certificate subject. If the SSL

In a recent Java project I needed to develop and provide to external clients a RESTful Web Services interface to an internal system. After some research I found that using JAX-RS and its open-source implementation Jersey with Spring and Hibernate as back-end will be great technologies stack for this project. Seems easy but unfortunately I

The .NET Framework does not provide standard functionality for resolving a path relative to the application root to a physical file system path. Thus in ASP.NET Web applications we need to use Server.MapPath(), but in console and Windows Forms / WPF applications we need to rely on the current directory. Moreover if we run a

Most people believe that Web applications should use only standard fonts like “Arial” and “Courrier New”. I think so (at least for the moment) but sometimes Web designers use non-standard fonts and you find out about this few months later. What to do? How to make the application behave correctly? Embed the Non-Standard Font into

I am invited to be а speaker at the upcomming seminar for PHP and Web developers that will focus on the integration of PHP with the Microsoft technologies and platforms. The speakers will demonstrate how to run PHP in IIS and how to integrate PHP and .NET applications. My talk will focus on the technologies

Today I researched how to implement in C# a method that forces a COM port to close when it is open by another process. This was found to be a complex task that involves using undocumented Win32 API functions. I didn’t finish it because I found another way to workaround the problem but the idea

I am working on an ActiveX control that allows using a device for scanning personal ID cards in a Web application (based on ASP.NET). The card scanning device (called RTE reader) is accessed using a native DLL that communicates with the device through the COM port by using a proprietary protocol. It is pretty complicated

I needed to enumerate all COM ports in C# and get their name (e.g. COM1, COM2, …) and their description shown in the Windows Device Manager (e.g. “Communications Port”, “RT USB MRTD Reader”). You could find lots of unmanaged code for doing this but I think this C# code could be helpful to people who