OpenBSD Europe
by Mike on May.14, 2009, under Web Development
OpenBSD is a secure and fast Unix-like operating system. The OS is open-source and emphasis is always on security. I have been commissioned to make a website, CMS and E-Commerce presence for a relatively new business, OpenBSD Europe. The website itself sells CD sets of the free operating system.
The work includes making the design, slicing it into valid table-less XHTML, creating a secure CMS where the author can easily edit the content (including products and pages) and optimising the site for SEO.
Originally the site had several nice jQuery visual effects, but due to cross-browser compatibility issues these were removed. The site features a twitter script I created that pulls the lastest twitter post from the company.
September 24th, 2009 on 6:48 pm
Mike, I’m in the process of building a couple of websites using OpenBSD as the web hosting platform, and I’ve heard many bad things with regards to the (utter lack of) security with most Content Management Systems, such as wordpress.
I would like to employ a CMS in order to take advantage of multilanguage features as well as lowering the overhead of keeping the site updated.
I’m curious to know which CMS you used with http://www.openbsdeurope.com/, and if security concerns were a driving factor in the selection.
September 24th, 2009 on 7:42 pm
Hi Seth,
Thanks for your comment.
I created my own bespoke CMS specifically for OpenBSDEurope.com. One of the main security issues with CMS’s is that they’re open source, so anyone can view the code. If you have the source code and enough time on your hands, you’ll surely be able to break it.
With regards to WordPress, I’ve never had any problems on here other than the usual spam, but keeping your plug-ins up-to-date keeps that at bay. Having said that, being a web developer I always use my own bespoke systems for anything mission critical. There’s no better replacement for thinking your code through from a security perspective, too many people overlook the simple things that they should automatically be doing.
Hope this helps.