iQuest Studios

Let’s begin with a quote from the introduction of the ALS 0.03B readme file:

“Advanced Login System was created as a pet project by me in year 2005. Then, from an online community, I knew how popular login systems were,as many people either lack the skills to create a PHP-MySQL integrated login system or they are simply too lazy to do so. Hence, there was this script on the forum, and I downloaded it. However,I found that while it does work, it was too simple, too inflexible and have many areas that can be improved on. Hence, Advanced Login System was born. Initally, it was still rather basic, with quite a lot of bugs in v0.01 Beta, but as I progressed on with this script, it gets better and better and v0.02 Beta includes major patches and new features.”

Yes.This is quite a good summary of how the Advanced Login System came about. Now, the official release is v0.02B, which includes the following major changes:

“NEW IN VERSION 0.02 BETA:

Ability for admin to configure the script more easily

• Configure if guests are allowed to register
• Configure if user needs to enter a validation image (useful for webmasters whose servers doesn’t not support GD library)
• Configure if user needs to enter a validation image during login
• Configure if user needs to validate his email address before logging in

Tighter security

Less hackable validation image

Disable login for 15 minutes if invalid password is entered 3 times in a row or incorrect validation code is entered

Able to reset password

Able to change password”

So what about v0.03Beta version? Why is there is special post mentioning it?

Compare the following two screenshots:
- Advanced Login System v0.03B

AND
- Advanced Login System v0.02B.
You don’t see much difference, do you? Maybe except for the CAPTCHA image, they look exactly the same. However, behind this simple layout that has characterized Advanced Login System, major changes has been written to the engine itself. Firstly, I have migrated from the use of the
form element to send our security image code with the use of sessions. I have also added extra lines, randomly changing background colors and randomly changing font color (of course contrast between the background and the number will still be there) as added security against bot attacks. Also, if you have examined the code of ALS v0.02B, you would find that I have used cookies to store the number of login attempts, and one can easily get around this by deleting the cookie. In ALS v0.03B, I have replaced the cookies with Database storage. This resulted in quite a major change in my code, all for the added security of this scripts. There are also other numerous functions coming along, and I hope I can finish this version by the end of my holidays.

You would notice for my changelog from v0.01B to v0.02B, I have added quite a number of features. However, the very core engine remained the same from 0.01B to 0.02B. Hence, the upgrade to v0.03B is one of the most challenging and fun thing that I have done in a while.

Here is the most important piece of news: This will be the FINAL BETA version. Meaning: After this version, the next version would be a final release. I will start my final release version with v0.04 and continue on from there. Why is this piece of news important? Because it means this version will probably be the most stable, compatible and powerful release in the 2 years of development of Advanced Login System!

Now, the second most important piece of news: When I do get to releasing the final version of ALS, I am considering of a paid version and a free version. Apparently, lots of users are not placing the copyright to me as they should be and my online financial status is not what people would call “good”. Hence I may be offering a version for sale, for around $15 with priority support and other benefits. Apparently, this would mean that those free users would have to wait longer for a new release. If I do release this, I will be releasing it with Product Installer - an installer script I created with Product Licensing Check and all that kind of stuff. I am really half half on this, half of me wants this project to remain free, yet the realistic half is telling me I should be getting some money out of this. Oh well, I will see how it goes.

As a little present from me to you, I have released a preview version of v0.3B. Note: This preview is incomplete, but in a working state. You can try it out if you wish.

Downloaded a total of 4240 times

Well, that’s about all I have to update you about, I will post about my trip to Australia some other time, it’s getting late here

cheers