The inclusion of C:\\fakepath\\ is a security feature of Internet Explorer 8, designed to prevent information regarding the file system structure being exposed when files are selected via a file input box. Current versions of most other web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, will return the file name without any path (relative or absolute).

The HTML5 specification states that the browser’s implementation of a file upload control should not reveal the true path to the file via its ‘value’ attribute. Internet Explorer, as always, does this differently than other browsers by including ‘fakepath’ rather than just removed the local path in its entirety.

This behaviour of Internet Explorer 8 can be overridden by added the size to the list of trusted sites within Internet Explorer 8 Internet options window. I’d personally only recommend this if the system is an secure internal and/or Intranet web-based system which requires the use of the full path.

Ideally, existing systems should be recoded to either not use the full path or to retrieve the full path via another method, such as manual input into a text input field.

I hope this post helps web developers who have unexpectedly come across this strange ‘fakepath’ and been unaware of where it was coming from.

Anyway – I’ve been talking quite a lot about Twitter recently and general social media.

I’ve said this before of course, but social media truly is great for both driving direct traffic to your website and for general search engine optimisation. Of course, different services meet different needs.

Take a look at some of the following social media related articles I’ve written recently.

Specifically, microblogging is fantastic for driving traffic to a website. The build up of following around a specific niche almost guarantees a visit from your followers, because they followed you, so they are very likely to be interested in what you have to say.

What have your experiences been using Twitter to drive traffic?

A complete success or slow progress so far? What problems have you faced when using Twitter or building up an online community following?

Graph sourced from Arbor Networks blog entry.

The main reason for Google’s huge increase in general Internet traffic was its acquisition of YouTube in 2007. YouTube delivers huge quantities of streaming video traffic, and the impressive growth of YouTube alone is enough to make a noticeable difference. Other contributing factors are massively increased adoption of other Google applications, such as Google Mail, Docs and Calendar, not only by consumers but also by mass deployment of Google Apps within businesses, as a replacement for local Microsoft exchange server set-ups.

Discretely, whilst doing no ‘evil’ (open to debate), Google has managed to push itself to the forefront of the Internet and is now a household name. Everyone knows Google.

You no longer search the Internet, you Google it.

I’m quite highly anticipating the release of Google Chrome OS – Google’s net book and appliance cloud operating system. There are a few main reasons behind this.

Simplicity and Openness

Note that I combine the two here. It is very important that both software user friendliness is combined with the nature of free and open source software to prevent device and software simplification becoming a model for restricted development.

Apple do one of these well – simplicity. Apple products are almost always considered to be highly user-friendly and easy to use for all consumers, taking the iPhone and iPad as the latest examples within the consumer electronics market.

However, Apple has a very closed nature to their software models, especially with the iPhone and iPad, where all application acquisition is restricted to a specific Apple controlled ‘App. Store’ and all application developement is restricted to a Apple controlled SDK (software development kit) which is platforme restricted and incompatible with all platforms other than Apple’s own Mac OS X platform.

Promotion of Open Source Software

Since Google Chrome OS is to based upon a Linux kernel, and use many existing Linux systems, not only will this bring improvements to Linux operating systems as a whole due to Google’s code contributions, but additionally it will bring Linux and, more generally, open source software into the light.

The concepts of Linux and open source software are by no means yet the household names of Microsoft, Windows and Apple. Dependant on how Google Chrome OS is marketed by Google, this release could be a great boom for the promotion of Linux as a whole.

Zero Price Operating System

Since Google intends to release the operating system for free (zero price), it will likely also reduce the apparent worth of paid operating systems, such as the paid offerings by Microsoft (Windows) or Apple (Mac OS X). The increased use of web applications and the Internet to do many daily tasks makes Google Chrome OS perfect for the most common uses of computers today. For these tasks, alternative operating systems hold no significant advantages, whilst the advantages for Microsoft and Apple operating systems now lie specifically in the domain of platform restricted software packages, either in the desktop realm, such as Microsoft Office / Apple iWork or the server realm, such as Microsoft Exchange / Mac OS X server software packages.

Even then, with the growth of multi-platform, online productivity and collaboration tools, such as Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Mail, these platform restricted ‘offline’ software packages may become redundant as more and more businesses and enterprises rely upon the Internet and cloud based applications and storage.

What do you think? Will Google Chrome OS be a boom for Linux, and will its competitors’ offerings be hurt significantly by its release?

“…the Ubuntu Technical Board sees no reason to exclude Mono or applications based upon it from the archive, or from the default installation set.

Since the Mono stack is already a dependency of the default installation set for many remixes of Ubuntu, including the Desktop Edition, there is no reason to consider a dependency on Mono as an issue when suggesting applications for the default set.”

Since the Mono stack is already default in the most common remix of Ubuntu (the Desktop Edition, based on download statistics), it makes sense that the official position should reflect this. One of the main curiousities is that the release of this statement brings up, is why it was released. Fingers point towards to obviously new Mono based C# application being released as default packages in Ubuntu. Perhaps one of these applications will be Banshee as a replacement for Rhythmbox, which is a replacement continually discussed on Ubuntu Forums with each new release.

One of the main concerns of using and including more C# programs in the default Ubuntuinstallation is the software patents Microsoft hold. If Microsoft were to force all free implementatons of C# to discontinue, we would suddenly loose the ability to (legally) use such applications. Although we would be able to use, manipulate, and distribute the code for these applications, interpretation of a free C# implementation (and more specifically, the use of the implementation) could be that which is deemed illegal. This would have the effect of taking a bite out of the software library until these programs are rewritten in any other language which does not require the use of Mono.

Relying on Mono and C# is very risky due to the Microsoft held software patents. The substantial risks have been discussed siginificantly by others also stating why you should not use C# due in part to the Mono reliance. Although there is a convinience associated with C# programming, I’d personally rather not take the risk for any project I’d want to make public and usable by others in case it was suddenly unable to be used in my prefered operating system.

If you wish, you can visit the official Wine website to get more details about this excellent free piece of software and download instructions.

• systeminfo | find “Up Time”
• net statistics server (Note that this command displays actually shows the last boot time from which the uptime can be calculated)
• Uptime (This command is not included in the operating system, but is an uptime utility provided by Microsoft)

Also, it is worth noting that Windows Server 2003 systems and above record their uptime in the System event log at midnight every night, as Event ID 6013. See the screenshot below from a Windows Server 2003 uptime event.

In Mac OS X, Linux, Unix and other Unix-like operating systems, simply enter the following command into any terminal and the current system load values and uptime will be displayed.

• uptime

In OpenVMS systems, the following command provides the system uptime.

• show system /noprocess

Hope this helps you find the uptime of your system regardless of the running operating system, be it Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix or any other system.

If you know uptime commands specific to any other operating systems not listed, please use the comments system and I will update this article accordingly. Of course, feel free to post your uptime(s) as well – a good bit of competition is always healthy!