Git Vulnerability on Mac OS X and Windows

Today the Git core team announced a security vulnerability and a corresponding fix. Hats off to the Mercurial team (yes, Mercurial!) for finding the problem. Hats off to the Git team for making the announcement, and for delivering a fix so quickly.

What’s the Problem?

If your Git installation remains un-patched, then a malicious person could over-write the .git/config directory in one of your repositories. This would allow them to alter your Git history and make changes in the repo without your knowledge. Details.

The vulnerability exists on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. This article will discuss solving the problem on Mac OS X only, since that is my primary development platform.

Ignite RubyConf 2014

Ignite is a presentation format where the slides advance automatically every 15 seconds whether the presenter is ready or not. Twenty slides, 15 seconds each, five minutes total. Presenters are challenged to present their ideas quickly and clearly before the time runs out.

Ignite is similar to Pecha Kucha. The two formats differ only in slide duration (20 seconds per slide with Pecha Kucha).

ChicagoRuby Expands to North Shore

Long-time observers of ChicagoRuby know that the group is always striving to achieve more. Latest move: ChicagoRuby is now hosting a monthly meetup on Chicago’s North Shore. The first meeting of ChicagoRuby: North Shore will be held on Saturday, December 6, 2014 at 10:30am. Visit Meetup.com for details and to RSVP.

Geekfest and OpenROV

Geekfest is a weekly event hosted by Groupon’s engineering team. Every Tuesday at lunchtime, the company invites members of the tech community to present topics that are interesting to a technical audience.

I wish to express my thanks to Groupon for inviting me to present OpenROV at today’s Geekfest.

UWI Computer Science Club & LinuxBarbados

Members of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Computer Science Club and LinuxBarbados just finished a joint session this afternoon. I am grateful that the group invited me to present. Outline (prepared in advance):

• 30 minutes: Overview of Ruby, Rails, and some alternatives to both. What are the advantages and disadvantages of building web apps with Ruby? Can you build a business with this stuff?

• 30 minutes: Questions and Answers. This will be a highly interactive time. Anything discussed earlier is fair game. We can explore technical specifics if you like.

• 60 minutes: Deep dive into anything the group wants to explore related to technology, business, or the combination of the two. If the group doesn’t choose a topic, we will end early. But if the group is interested and engaged, we will continue.