I’m pleased to announce that as of today Padlock 2.0 has hit the feature freeze stage! The only changes prior to the official release (which will be the later half of this month) will be JavaDoc updates and bug fixes. I’ve just wrapped up development of the new UI (now called Padlock Manager) and I [...]
Category : Blog
It’s my pleasure to make available the latest milestone build of the upcoming Padlock 2.0 release. The past 3 months have been busy updating the core Padlock library as well as a complete re-write of the PadlockUI (now known as Padlock Manager). This will likely be the last Milestone release for 2.0, with the [...]
Category : Blog
Not long ago I had a real life run in with apparent versus true security. It happened when my 6 year old son accidentally locked his bedroom door while standing in the hallway. He had locked himself (and the rest of us) out of the room. Now, most bedrooms here in the [...]
Category : Blog
2010 has finally rolled in (with absolutely freezing temperatures here in the Poconos). Padlock wrapped up its first year of business with success, and it’s with great pleasure the holiday lull is over and work continues on Padlock 2.0 and beyond. Currently, the API is nearing what I would consider stable I’m moving [...]
Category : Blog
I just wanted to let everybody know that Padlock has a great announcement list for keeping up to date on the newest Padlock releases. In addition to the 2.0 series releases, there are some other products in the pipeline that you’ll want to know about. It’s low traffic and won’t clog up your [...]
Category : Blog
Today I’ve made Padlock 2.0 Milestone 1.2 available for download. It’s got two changes worth noting
The LicenseManager utility now has an option “-O” to print the license contents to Standard Out instead of a file. This should help those automating the license creation process
The Validator (and ValidatorPlugin Interface) has been revamped. When the Validator [...]
Category : Blog
I’m pleased to announce that Padlock 2.0 M1 is now available for download! This is the first publicly available code for the new Padlock series, and even in this early stage the code base appears to be relatively stable. There are a host of new features in 2.0, the details of which can [...]
Category : Blog
When writing a license manager, one of the most dangerous things you can do is rely on negative data as the basis for granting privileges. For example, storing a program’s installation date, number of runs and last run time (to prevent clock turnbacks) typically keep this info in a file or the computer’s registry. It’s [...]
Category : Blog
When coming up with your licensing strategy, it may be tempting to (and help you sleep at night) to enforce more rather than enforce less. Why do only a time limited trial when you can do a time limited, hardware locked trial? Why give out a perpetual license when you can require internet activation and [...]
Category : Blog
Software licensing is a funny thing. We use it to create virtual scarcity in the place of real scarcity. Take a hammer for instance. You can buy one at Home Depot for about $10. If a builder attempted to build a house with a single hammer, it would take forever. The hammer has built in [...]
Category : Blog
