Peter Blum has taken his great know how with asp.net server controls and validation and combined that with the awesome lessons we have learned about securing ASP.NET websites, to create “Visual Input Security” tools (and it’s clever nickname: VISE). I haven’t had a chance to play with them yet, but did spend some time looking at the extensive and educational manual which kept making me go “wow!“

The basics:Visual Input Security™ is a formidable defense against SQL Injection, Script Injection (Cross Site Scripting), Input Tampering, and Brute Force attacks on your ASP.NET web sites.

The tools allow the flexibility of everything from locking down a whole page to explicitly defining how to secure individual controls.

There’s a demo and even 30 day guarantee on the product.

I plan to retro-fit one of my client’s sites with these.

btw – the peterblum.com website got a design overhaual and looks awesome – I love the logo – nice job all around Peter!!

I have used PaintShop Pro for years – I think since version 4. The features I use most are screen capture, image resize and brightness/contrast adjustment. Once in a while I will create little graphics with it, too.

A few versions ago, they decided to compete with the serious graphics applications and started dumping in so much stuff that I had no understanding of or use for (kinda like Excel 🙂 ). I never could got a handle for most of these features and often they get in my way. I still use it, though, just because it’s there and I have the license and it’s 4 gazillion trillion etc times better than MS Paint.

Scott Hanselman talks about the new Paint.NET and at the same time, expresses the exact same frustration with PaintShop Pro that I have always had. Nice to know it wasn’t just me. I guess I better go take a look at this Paint.NET, as Scott is the de facto guy when it comes to utilities!!