Updated Echo360 download script.

UWA seems to have modified its Echo360 configuration again.  Here are some updated scripts to allow downloading the lectures easily:

Firefox extension
Chrome Extension

Installation instructions are still as per this post.

Some notes:
1. I have received a lot of requests from various people to try to make this extension work at universities other than UWA.  While I'm happy to try and help with this, please understand that the chances of getting things working are pretty slim, and I'm unlikely to be able to help you; different universities configure their servers differently.

2. This is my last semester at UWA, and I'll keep the extension working until the end of the year (subject to how much time I have). However, if UWA makes further changes next year, I will not be able to update things (since I'll no longer have access to echo).  At some point in the future, I'll put the extension code on github or something, and post a tutorial on how to modify it when UWA's changes break things (it's not hard at all).

fofork 1.5.0 complete!

Version 1.5.0 of fofork is finally complete!  Major changes compared to 1.0 include:

Database

• Database layer rewritten to use PDO, instead of deprecated mysql extension.
• Can now be run unmodified on either mysql or postgresql (instead of just mysql)
• Database performance significantly improved

Security

• Password hashing now uses bcrypt (with adjustable effort) instead of md5, to prevent brute-forcing hashes in the event of disclosure.
• Improved random number generation to create cryptographically secure salts
• Improved session handling
• Logs are no longer encrypted using the database password

Useability and Features

• New log viewer filters log entries on client side, making it substantially faster
• Various tweaks to navigation, flagging of long items, etc
• Improved installer, allows the user to back out of installation

Plus many more minor tweaks, bug fixes, and performance improvements.

The code is available on Github:
https://github.com/robisacommonusername/fofork.git
Or as an archive:
https://github.com/robisacommonusername/fofork/tarball/master

It is possible to upgrade a fofork 1.0.x or 1.1.y installation to version 1.5.z using the included upgrade script.  However, due to the changed password hashing algorithm, you will lose any created user accounts other than the admin account.  If this is a problem, then you can upgrade your installation to version 1.1.1 (the newest in the 1.1 branch).  This release corrects several minor security issues in the 1.1 branch, but is fully backwards compatible with versions 1.0.  It is available at https://github.com/robisacommonusername/fofork/archive/v1.1.1.tar.gz

Future features to be included in version 1.6 include

• Allowing new users to register
• An API
• Upgrading Simplepie 

Happy newsreading!

fofork is now available on github

I've finally got around to creating a github account, and am starting to move some of my projects there.

The development version of fofork is now available, at https://github.com/robisacommonusername/fofork.git