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Key Software Development Trends

2010-09-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

More than ever before, today’s developers are open to considering and using multiple technologies to enable them to build solutions smoothly and deliver them to their customers quickly. There are an increasing number of choices available for developers in terms of programming styles. Our goal is to provide fantastic support for all programming styles within our tools to enable our customers to build great software.

Several trends are emerging within the area of software development. Below are some of the most important trends I’ve been thinking about recently. This list isn’t comprehensive of all software trends, but each one represents an area that Microsoft is currently or will be investing in to bring to our customers.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing allows companies to leverage just the computing resources they need today, scale up to handle peak loads, and avoid the overhead of managing hardware. Cloud computing levels the playing field for small companies to compete against large, established companies at a reasonable and predictable cost. Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and services such as Windows Live, Office, and Xbox Live are now live in the cloud. Microsoft has committed to bringing the best cloud computing platform and services to the Windows ecosystem. The cloud is just one example of a virtualized computing platform, and the next generation of developer tools must enable developers to build software that deploys and performs well in cloud and other virtual environments.

The Web as a Platform

The browser provides a rich runtime environment and friction-free access to applications. Developers are increasingly choosing the web as their platform of choice for software and software development. Increasingly, developers and designers are using tools that offer a rich development, debugging, and profiling experience designed for the web. JavaScript libraries allow web developers to get more done with JavaScript than ever before while reaching a wide audience, and immersive internet applications, such as those written for Silverlight, allow developers to break free of the limitations of HTML and take advantage of a range of resources and features while guaranteeing compatibility across platforms.

Parallel Computing

Moore’s Law, the prediction that CPU performance would double every eighteen months, is now fulfilled by adding more processor cores rather than by increased performance of a single core, bringing the power of multi-core processing to low-end machines. New trends in computing take advantage of inexpensive and widely-available desktop graphics processors for certain tasks. At the high end of processing ability, supercomputing centers are leveraging clusters to perform complex computational tasks. Today, a small handful of programmers have the skills to write code that performs well in multi-core and many-core environments. In the future, parallel libraries, debugging, profiling, and diagnostic tools will enable more developers to take advantage of parallel computing resources.

Proliferation of Devices

With the increasing availability of inexpensive devices that connect to the internet, we all want to access and interact with our data in ways that are appropriate to our devices’ capabilities. We expect to access our online identities and data easily and securely on all our devices. Today, Microsoft provides access to users’ data via Windows Live and Xbox LIVE. With the proliferation of devices has come a proliferation of user interface paradigms that enable natural and intuitive interaction with those devices. As touch-based, speech-based, and camera-based solutions become available and cost-effective, Microsoft is evolving software to take advantage of these capabilities to build intuitive user interfaces. Windows 7 provides great support for touch-enabled applications in the platform. Silverlight and WPF have embraced camera-based interactions and multi-touch, as has MFC. I expect user interface paradigms to continue to evolve and become more intuitive and powerful.

Agile Development Process

Agile development processes, including Scrum, test-driven development, and continuous integration are commonly used in the enterprise and smaller development shops, often in combination with other development practices. Within Microsoft, many teams have integrated elements of Agile development practices to their process. Visual Studio 2010 opens the door for Agile methodologies, offering support for some Agile processes such as unit testing and iteration planning. We will continue to support more Agile methodologies going forward as well.

Distributed Development

Distributed development enables team members to work closely despite geographic separation from each other, bringing together worldwide talent to seamlessly work toward a common project or goal. The experience of a team working across time zones and borders should be as good as the experience for a single developer, but also includes supporting cloud-based development activities such as distributed code reviews, remote paired programming, developer/tester collaboration and resource sharing. Great distributed team development tools will enable developers to build the next generation of software, leveraging the worldwide talent pool.

In Closing…

These trends don’t represent a complete list of influential factors for all areas, but are some of the areas we feel can move software development forward. I welcome your perspective: which of these trends do you feel will be most important in the future? Are there trends you think should be included in this list? Leave a comment with your perspective.

Visual Studio Lab Management

2010-09-20T04:40:00.001-07:00

What is Visual Studio Lab Management 2010?

Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 is a new offering in the Visual Studio 2010 release wave. Lab Management 2010 enables teams to configure and manage a virtual lab environment. Lab Management works with System Center Virtual Machine Manager for enabling teams to create environment templates, provision ring-fenced environments, and checkpoint those environments. Using Lab Management, you can accelerate setup, tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a known state for test execution and build automation. It extends build automation by automating virtual machine provisioning, build deployment and build verification in an integrated manner. It also enables testers to file rich bugs with links to environment checkpoints that developers can use to recreate complex environments, effectively reducing wasted time and resources in your development and test life cycle. Those checkpoints can be attached to bugs filed using the Microsoft Test Manager enabling the person fixing the bug to open the environment right to the appropriate point in the application flow.

What are the pricing details of Visual Studio Lab Management 2010?

Suggested FPP retail price for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 is US$1,599. Of course, the majority of customers are likely to qualify for a lower price point based on volume licensing discounts. Feel free to share this data with your customers to help them budget for Lab Management. Lab Management 2010 will be priced as per physical processor (each processor of each lab server must be licensed for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010). Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate or Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 is required to manage lab environments.

A dizzying number of machines need to be set up, torn down, or restored to a particular snapshot so the software team can work at maximum efficiency. Daily builds need to be available on schedule. Multiple virtual machine environments need to be managed. Managing a lab efficiently can be a significant task.

Lab Management enables automation and optimization of the build-deploy-test process, while maintaining visibility into the process, using Hyper-V virtualization technologies. Lab Management stores, manages, and lets you deploy to known configurations and test environments using System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Test Manager 2010 allows team members to create, start, stop, and view environments so testers and developers can collaborate without interrupting lab operations.

Getting an environment configured correctly just to reproduce a bug can take significant time and effort. Lab Management allows testers to provide a link to a virtual machine snapshot directly in a bug report so developers can see exactly what testers see. Developers can spend more time debugging and less time installing, configuring, and deploying.

Location Independent Naming

2010-09-20T04:00:00.001-07:00

Currently, most users think of computers as associated with their desktop appliances or with a server located in a dungeon in some mysterious basement. However, many of those same users may be considered to be nomads, in that they own computers and communication devices that they carry about with them in their travels as they move between office, home, airplane, hotel, automobile, branch office, and so on. Moreover, even without portable computers or communications, there are many who travel to numerous locations in their business and personal lives and who require access to computers and communications when they arrive at their destinations.

Indeed, even a move from a desk to a conference table in the same office constitutes a nomadic move since the computing platforms and communications capability may be considerably different at the two locations. The variety of portable computers is impressive, ranging from laptop computers, notebook computers, and personal digital assistants (or personal information managers) to "smart" credit card devices and wristwatch computers. In addition, the communication capability of these portable computers is advancing at a dramatic pace from high-speed modems to PCMCIA modems, e-mail receivers on a card, spread-spectrum hand-held radios, CDPD transceivers, portable GPS receivers, and gigabit satellite access, and so on.

The combination of portable computing with portable communications is changing the way we think about information processing. We now recognize that access to computing and communications is necessary not only from "home base" but also while in transit and after reaching a destination.

These ideas form the essence of a major shift to nomadicity (nomadic computing and communications), which we address in this paper. The focus is on the system support needed to provide a rich set of capabilities and services, in a transparent and convenient form, to the nomad moving from place to place.

In this paper we propose location independent naming as a mechanism to support nomadic computing on the Internet. Nomadic computing is a limited, but common form of mobile computing.Nomadic users compute from different locations, but do not require network connectivity while they are moving. For example, a salesman will travel from customer to customer, using his laptop at each location but storing it while driving to the next location.

While Mobile IP was designed for continuously moving computers, it can also support nomadic users. Mobile IP allows users to maintain existing connections while traveling between networks by allowing machines to carry their IP address with them when they move to a new network. Unfortunately, preserving IP addresses across networks introduces several drawbacks, including the performance penalties of triangle routing; the security problems of IP tunneling through fire-walls, and the loss of connectivity due to packet loss from source address filters. The drawbacks are inherent to Mobile IP since it breaks the one-to-one mapping between IP address and network location that is used by the Internet to route packets to the correct destination.

Our approach, Location Independent Naming (LIN), allows a machine to keep the same name as it moves around the Internet by rebinding its name to its local address when it moves. Once this binding has been made, the machine can communicate with any other host on the Internet using standard IP routing, since the source address on its packets identifies the machine's actual location. Further, other machines on the Internet can communicate with this machine, since its host-name maps to its current address. While this machine remains at its current location, it behaves just like any other machine at that location - no special support is needed except to setup and teardown the name-to-address binding. Because LIN preserves the association between IP address and location, it avoids the performance and security drawbacks of Mobile IP for nomadic computers, as well as the complexities of optimizing Mobile IP.

LIN represents an advance of the state of the art as it allows correspondent hosts to communicate with a nomadic host using its well-known name without the performance penalties, security issues, or need for infrastructure support of Mobile IP. It leverages and extends existing and pro-posed functionality of DNS (Domain Name System) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) to allow a mobile host to keep its name while moving across security domains using existing trust relationships.

Authentication in ASP.NET

2010-09-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

There are two closely interlinked concepts at the heart of security for distributed applications - authentication and authorization. Authentication is the process of obtaining some sort of credentials from the users and using those credentials to verify the user's identity. Authorization is the process of allowing an authenticated user access to resources. Authentication is always precedes to Authorization; even if your application lets anonymous users connect and use the application, it still authenticates them as being anonymous.
ASP.net provides flexible set of alternatives for authentication. You can perform authentication yourself in code or delegate authentication to other authorities (such as Microsoft Passport). In fact sometimes it seems ASP.net authentication is a bit too flexible; it can be difficult for a new developer to know just where to start. In this article, we review the settings in ASP.net and Internet Information Services (IIS) that control authentication and authorization in ASP.net applications.

An ASP.net application has two separate authentication layers. That is because ASP.net is not a standalone product. Rather it is a layer on top of IIS. All requests flow through IIS before they are handed to ASP.net. As a result, IIS can decide to deny access without the ASP.net process even knowing that someone requested a particular page. Here is an overview of the steps in the joint IIS and ASP.net authentication process.

IIS first checks to make sure the incoming request comes from an IP address that is allowed access to the domain. If not it denies the request.

Next IIS performs its own user authentication if it configured to do so. By default IIS allows anonymous access, so requests are automatically authenticated, but you can change this default on a per - application basis with in IIS.

If the request is passed to ASP.net with an authenticated user, ASP.net checks to see whether impersonation is enabled. If impersonation is enabled, ASP.net acts as though it were the authenticated user. If not ASP.net acts with its own configured account.

Finally the identity from step 3 is used to request resources from the operating system. If ASP.net authentication can obtain all the necessary resources it grants the users request otherwise it is denied. Resources can include much more than just the ASP.net page itself you can also use .Net's code access security features to extend this authorization step to disk files, Registry keys and other resources.

As you can see several security authorities interact when the user requests and ASP.net page. If things are not behaving the way you think they should, it can be helpful to review this list and make sure you have considered all the factors involved

Authentication providers

Assuming IIS passes a request to ASP.net, what happens next? The answer depends on the configuration of ASP.net itself. The ASP.net architecture includes the concept of and authentication provider a piece of code whose job is to verify credentials and decide whether a particular request should be considered authenticated. Out of the box ASP.net gives you a choice of three different authentication providers.

The windows Authentication provider lets you authenticates users based on their windows accounts. This provider uses IIS to perform the authentication and then passes the authenticated identity to your code. This is the default provided for ASP.net.

The passport authentication provider uses Microsoft's passport service to authenticate users.

The forms authentication provider uses custom HTML forms to collect authentication information and lets you use your own logic to authenticate users. The user's credentials are stored in a cookie for use during the session.

Selecting an authentication provider is as simple as making an entry in the web.config file for the application. You can use one of these entries to select the corresponding built in authentication provider:

<authentication mode="windows">
authentication mode="passport">
<authentication mode="forms">

ASP.net also supports custom authentication providers. This simply means that you set the authentication mode for the application to none, then write your own custom code to perform authentication. For example, you might install an ISAPI filter in IIS that compares incoming requests to list of source IP addresses, and considers requests to be authenticated if they come from an acceptable address. In that case, you would set the authentication mode to none to prevent any of the .net authentication providers from being triggered.

Windows authentication and IIS

If you select windows authentication for your ASP.NET application, you also have to configure authentication within IIS. This is because IIS provides Windows authentication. IIS gives you a choice for four different authentication methods:

Anonymous, basic digest, and windows integrated

If you select anonymous authentication, IIS doesn't perform any authentication, Any one is allowed to access the ASP.NET application.

If you select basic authentication, users must provide a windows username and password to connect. How ever this information is sent over the network in clear text, which makes basic authentication very much insecure over the internet.

If you select digest authentication, users must still provide a windows user name and password to connect. However the password is hashed before it is sent across the network. Digest authentication requires that all users be running Internet Explorer 5 or later and that windows accounts to stored in active directory.

If you select windows integrated authentication, passwords never cross the network. Users must still have a username and password, but the application uses either the Kerberos or challenge/response protocols authenticate the user. Windows-integrated authentication requires that all users be running internet explorer 3.01 or later Kerberos is a network authentication protocol. It is designed to provide strong authentication for client/server applications by using secret-key cryptography. Kerberos is a solution to network security problems. It provides the tools of authentication and strong cryptography over the network to help to secure information in systems across entire enterprise

Passport authentication

Passport authentication lets you to use Microsoft's passport service to authenticate users of your application. If your users have signed up with passport, and you configure the authentication mode of the application to the passport authentication, all authentication duties are offloaded to the passport servers.

Passport uses an encrypted cookie mechanism to indicate authenticated users. If users have already signed into passport when they visit your site, they'll be considered authenticated by ASP.NET. Otherwise they'll be redirected to the passport servers to log in. When they are successfully log in, they'll be redirected back to your site

To use passport authentication you have to download the Passport Software Development Kit (SDK) and install it on your server. The SDK can be found at http://msdn.microdoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/websrvpass.aps. It includes full details of implementing passport authentication in your own applications.

Forms authentication

Forms authentication provides you with a way to handle authentication using your own custom logic with in an ASP.NET application. The following applies if you choose forms authentication.

When a user requests a page for the application, ASP.NET checks for the presence of a special session cookie. If the cookie is present, ASP.NET assumes the user is authenticated and processes the request.

If the cookie isn't present, ASP.NET redirects the user to a web form you provide

You can carry out whatever authentication, checks you like in your form. When the user is authenticated, you indicate this to ASP.NET by setting a property, which creates the special cookie to handle subsequent requests.

Configuring Authorization

After your application has authenticated users, you can proceed to authorize their access to resources. But there is a question to answer first: Just who is the user to whom your are grating access? It turns out that there are different answers to that question, depending on whether you implement impersonation. Impersonation is a technique that allows the ASP.NET process to act as the authenticated user, or as an arbitrary specified user

ASP.NET impersonation is controlled by entries in the applications web.config file. The default setting is "no impersonation". You can explicitly specify that ASP.NET shouldn't use impersonation by including the following code in the file

With this setting ASP.NET does not perform impersonation. It means that ASP.NET will runs with its own privileges. By default ASP.NET runs as an unprivileged account named ASPNET. You can change this by making a setting in the processModel section of the machine.config file. When you make this setting, it automatically applies to every site on the server. To user a high-privileged system account instead of a low-privileged, set the userName attribute of the processModel element to SYSTEM. Using this setting is a definite security risk, as it elevates the privileges of the ASP.NET process to a point where it can do bad things to the operating system.

When you disable impersonation, all the request will run in the context of the account running ASP.NET: either the ASPNET account or the system account. This is true when you are using anonymous access or authenticating users in some fashion. After the user has been authenticated, ASP.NET uses it own identity to request access to resources.

The second possible setting is to turn on impersonation.

In this case, ASP.NET takes on the identity IIS passes to it. If you are allowing anonymous access in IIS, this means ASP.NET will impersonate the IUSR_ComputerName account that IIS itself uses. If you aren't allowing anonymous access,ASP.NET will take on the credentials of the authenticated user and make requests for resources as if it were that user. Thus by turning impersonation on and using a non-anonymous method of authentication in IIS, you can let users log on and use their identities within your ASP.NET application.

Finally, you can specify a particular identity to use for all authenticated requests

Self Defending Networks

2010-09-13T05:25:00.000-07:00

The Next Generation of Network Security helps networking professionals understand how to deploy an end-to-end, integrated network security solution. It presents a clear view of the various components that can be used throughout the network to not only monitor traffic but to allow the network itself to become more proactive in preventing and mitigating network attacks. This security primer provides unique insight into the entire range of Cisco security solutions, showing what each element is capable of doing and how all of the pieces work together to form an end-to-end Self-Defending Network. While other books tend to focus on individual security components, providing in-depth configuration guidelines for various devices and technologies, Self-Defending Networks instead presents a high-level overview of the entire range of technologies and techniques that comprise the latest thinking in proactive network security defenses. This book arms network security professionals with the latest information on the comprehensive suite of Cisco security tools and techniques. Network Admission Control, Network Infection Containment, Dynamic Attack Mitigation, DDoS Mitigation, Host Intrusion Prevention, and Integrated Security Management are all covered, providing the most complete overview of various security systems. It focuses on leveraging integrated management, rather than including a device-by-device manual to implement self-defending networks.

Browser Capabilities - Using the Browser Object in C#

2010-09-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will show how to reference the Browser object to retrieve information about what your client can display. C# version.
The text attribute of each label in the ASPX page will be dynamically changed upon runtime, depending upon the user configuration / browser.
First, let's create a layout to display the information:

The following code checks for values for specific properties of the Browser Object.
We are able to output these values to the user to notify them, but we are also able to use these values in the code to display our page differently to different users. For example, not using ActiveX Controls if the user's browser does not support ActiveX.

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

if (Request.Browser.ActiveXControls == true)
{

Label1.Text = "This browser supports ActiveX Controls.";

}
else
{

Label1.Text = "This browser does not support ActiveX controls.";

}

if (Request.Browser.AOL == true)
{

Label2.Text = "This browser is AOL.";

}
else
{

Label2.Text = "This browser is not AOL.";

}

if (Request.Browser.BackgroundSounds == true)
{

Label3.Text = "This browser supports Background Sounds.";

}
else
{

Label3.Text = "This browser does not support Background Sounds.";

}

if (Request.Browser.CDF == true)
{

Label4.Text = "This browser supports Channel Definition Format.";

}
else
{

Label4.Text = "This browser does not support Channel Definition Format.";

}

if (Request.Browser.ClrVersion.ToString() != "0.0")
{

Label5.Text = "This client supports the .NET Framework! You are running version " + Request.Browser.ClrVersion.ToString();

}
else
{

Label5.Text = "You do not have the .NET Framework installed on your machine.";

}

if (Request.Browser.Cookies == true)
{

Label6.Text = "This browser supports Cookies.";

}
else
{

Label6.Text = "This browser does not currently support Cookies.";

}

Label7.Text = "You are running version " + Request.Browser.EcmaScriptVersion.ToString() + " of ECMA Script.";

if (Request.Browser.Frames == true)
{

Label8.Text = "This browser supports HTML Frames.";

}
else
{

Label8.Text = "This browser does not support HTML Frames.";

}

if (Request.Browser.JavaApplets == true)
{

Label9.Text = "This browser supports Java Applets.";

}
else
{

Label9.Text = "This browser does not support Java Applets.";

}

Label10.Text = Request.Browser.Type.ToString() + "." + Request.Browser.MinorVersion.ToString();

Label11.Text = Request.Browser.Platform;

}

Firefox 4 beta 5 beefs up video, audio, security features

2010-09-11T03:58:00.000-07:00

Tuesday evening, Mozilla pushed out the fifth beta of its Firefox 4 Web browser. With this update, improvements to the browser's audio, video, and security have been added.
Two weeks ago, the Beta 4 release of Firefox 4 included new features to help users get organized, Firefox ,Sync and Panorama. This release focuses less on giving users new features, and more on providing the tools for a better experience down the road.

First, Firefox 4 now features hardware acceleration in Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines with DirectX10-compatible hardware. This feature has existed since the very early builds of FF4, but only now is it included by default. What it does is Utilize the Direct2D Rendering System so the graphics hardware can speed up rendering of page content, such as text and images. Eventually, this will also be able to speed up compositing as well, but that is not ready in Beta 5. Secondly, the new Audio API cuts open the HTML5 audio and video elements, so the raw audio data can be viewed and accessed. Developers will be able to use this data to create new in-browser audio experiences, some of which Mozilla showed off in an impressive demonstration today.

Finally, Firefox 4 Beta 5 now supports HSTS, or HTTP Strict Transport Security. This feature makes FF4 remember which sites utilize SSL, to prevent the vulnerability that occurs when users access an encrypted site through a non-encrypted version.

"If a web page provide has an https version but you access it through http, what happens? The http version of the Website re-direct you to the https, but you firsttalked to the non-encrypted version of the website. These behaviors can be exploited to run a man-in-the-middle attack."
So now, sites that support HSTS can automatically redirect any request to their secure site.

Wireless LAN Security

2010-09-11T03:28:00.001-07:00

Wireless LAN Security

One issue with corporate Wireless networks in general, and WLANs in particular, involves the need for security. Many early access points could not discern whether or not a particular user had authorization to access the network. Although this problem reflects issues that have long troubled many types of wired networks (it has been possible in the past for individuals to plug computers into randomly available Ethernet Jacks and get access to a local network), this did not usually pose a significant problem, since many organizations had reasonably good physical security. However, the fact that radio signals bleed outside of buildings and across property lines makes physical security largely irrelevant Piggybackers. Such corporate issues are covered in Wireless security

The approval of the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks
(WLANs) and the subsequent fall in prices for wireless network interface cards
(NICs) and wireless access points (APs) has caused an explosion in demand for
wireless LAN capability. Because of this demand, network administrators have had
to deal with two conflicting issues. Network administrators want to provide users
with the flexibility and convenience that wireless network access offers while
maintaining network security and integrity.

Benefits of Wireless LANs

A traditionally wired 10/100 BaseT Ethernet LAN infrastructure for 100 people costs about US$15,000 and requires several days to install (see Figure 1). Enterprises that use such an arrangement also incur additional costs and disruptions with every change to the physical office. (Expenses vary according to the physical layout and the quality of the equipment used.) Conversely, wireless LANs are less expensive and less intrusive to implement and maintain, as user needs change.

SIMPLIFIED IMPLEMENTATION AND MAINTENANCE

Wireless APs can be placed in the ceiling, where they can accommodate a virtually endless

variety of office configurations (see Figure 2). Wired LANs, in contrast, consume time and

resources to run cables from a network closet to user’s desktops and to difficult-to-service areas

such as conference room tables and common areas. With a wired LAN, each additional user or

modification to the floor plan necessitates adjustments to the cabling system.

SECURITY FEATURES

The 802.11 standard provides for two primary security features that, unfortunately,
fall short of a truly secure solution. Both of the solutions operate on the data link
layer of the network.

The DataView and DataViewManager

2010-09-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

Data binding depends on two classes in the System.Data namespace: DataView and DataViewManager. These classes provide an important layer of indirection between your data and its display format, allowing you to apply sorts and filter rows without modifying the underlying information—that is, to have different views on the same data. ADO.NET binding is always provided through one of these objects.
Both ASP.NET and Windows Forms allow you to bind other types of objects to controls, including custom classes, arrays, and some collection types. However, ADO.NET binding always uses DataView and DataViewManager, so this chapter focuses on these two classes.
The DataView class acts as a view onto a single DataTable. When creating a DataView object, you specify the underlying DataTable in the constructor:

DataView view = new DataView(ds.Tables["Customers"]);

Every DataTable also provides a default DataView through the DataTable. DefaultView property:

DataView view = ds.Tables["Customers"].DefaultView;

The DataViewManager represents a view of an entire DataSet. As with the DataView, you can create a DataViewManager manually, passing in a reference to a DataSet as a constructor argument, or you can use the default DataViewManager provided through the DataSet.DefaultViewManager property.

The DataView and DataViewManager provide three key features:

Sorting based on any column criteria

Filtering based on any combination of column values

Filtering based on the row state (such as deleted, inserted, and unchanged)

ASP.NET Data Binding

2010-09-10T04:16:00.000-07:00

ASP.NET data binding differs dramatically from Windows Forms data binding. The key difference is that ASP.NET data binding takes place on the server side when the page is loaded. However, there is no mechanism to apply the data binding to the rendered HTML page that is sent to the user. Thus, there is no way to implement synchronized controls or editable data objects (although this can be simulated). ASP.NET binding is strictly one-way; data can flow from a DataSet into a control but not vice versa.

Because of a web application’s stateless nature, ASP.NET data binding is less powerful than Windows Forms data binding. However, ASP.NET makes up for the loss by including several advanced template-based controls, such as the DataGrid, DataList, and Repeater. These controls have a much more customizable interface and offer many features the Windows DataGrid doesn’t.

The data binding process in an ASP.NET page works like this:

1. You define the bindings, using similar syntax to what you use when binding a Windows form.

2. You trigger data binding for individual controls or the entire page by calling the DataBind( ) method. At this point, the information moves from the data objects to the controls.

3. The final page is rendered to HTML. The data objects are discarded.

4. The page is posted back at a later point, perhaps in response to an editing action the user has performed with a data-bound control. At this point, you must requery the database, re-create the ADO.NET objects, and rebind the page before returning it to the user. Optionally, your program can issue an update statement to the database.

It helps to think of ASP.NET data binding as a quick and flexible way to populate controls with information from a database. It can’t create the same sort of "record-browsers" that are possible with Windows Forms because there is no synchronization method for the controls. To implement functionality similar to what is available in Windows Forms, you have to handle control events and continuously post back the page whenever a selection changed.

Internet Explorer 9

2010-09-09T01:51:00.000-07:00

Internet Explorer 9 (abbreviated as IE9) is the upcoming version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It is currently in development, but developer previews have been released.

E9 will have complete or nearly complete support for all Css 3 selectors, border-radius CSS 3 property, faster JavaScript, and embedded ICC v2 or v4 colourprofiles support via Windows Color System. IE9 will feature Hardware-accelerated graphics rendering using Direct2D, hardware accelerated text rendering using Directwrite, hardware accelerated video rendering using Media Foundation, imaging support provided by windows Imaging Component, and high fidelity printing powered by the XPS print pipeline. IE9 also supports the HTML5 video and audio tags and the web OpenFont Format

"The Platform Preview, and the feedback loop it is part of, marks a major change from previous IE releases," said Dean Hachamovich, the browser team's general manager, in a statement issued today before he took the stage at MIX10, Microsoft's Web developer conference, to publicly launch IE9. IE 9 Platform Preview is far from polished, or even finished, Microsoft acknowledged, which is why it has slapped the moniker on the release, a first for IE.

"While it loads and renders Web pages using the Internet Explorer 9 platform, it is not designed to be a complete Web browser," Microsoft said in a fact sheet that accompanied the preview's announcement. "This build is simply a first look at the work Microsoft has done so far and is ready to share with its developer community."

"Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001, and is intended to be run on a modern operating system in order to build on the latest hardware and operating system innovations," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail reply toComputerworld's questions Tuesday morning.

IE9, which Microsoft again touted for its performance gains,Taps the PC’s graphic processor to boost text and graphics rendering speeds using the Direct2D and DirectWrite APIs (application programming interfaces). Support for those APIs is built into Windows 7, and added to Vista and Server 2008 R2 with the October 2009 Platform Update.

Unlike full-fledged editions of IE, the IE9 Platform Preview does not replace existing versions of IE -- such as IE7 on Vista or IE8 on Windows 7 -- but runs alongside them on the same PC.

Function to Encrypt String in C# .Net using SHA1 Algorithm

2010-09-08T23:47:00.001-07:00

SHA stands for Secure Hash Algorithm. This hash algorithm are applied to encrpt the string and store in un-readable format. SHA-1 is the best established of the existing SHA hash functions, and is employed in several widely used security applications and protocols. SHA-1 is implemented in .Net using System.Security.Cryptography.SHA1 Namespace.

First the given string is converted to byte array using ASCIIEncoding class in System.Text Namespace. GetBytes method on ASCIIEncoding class converts given string to byte[]

ComputeHash method in SHA1 class create a hash with SHA-1 Algorithm. Resultant Hashed byte[] is convert to string using Convert.ToBase64String Method

Hashed on encrpted string cannot be decryted (for security reasons). Raw string can be compared with hashed string only by hashing the raw string using the same hash function.

ASP.NET Security: Hashing User Passwords

2010-09-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

One of the best security practices concerning any web application that requires user authentication is to encrypt a user's password in the database. However, I take this a step further which is also a best practice, it is a one-way encryption. This means nobody will ever know the user's password, which is how it should be. He/she may be using it somewhere else.

Think about this the next time you go to a website and they have a method of sending you your original password. This is bad. This means either 1) they are not encrypting your password, or 2) it is being encrypted such that it can be decrypted back to its original value. Either way, this is a bad practice.

This is totally unacceptable to me. I won't create an application unless the passwords are encrypted using a one-way hash. If the person loses her password, she will need to be sent a new one in which case the password will need to be changed upon the next logon.

This one-way password hashing is built right into the .NET Framework, so you don't have to go out and buy a product. Upon registration, the user enters in the password and you create a random set of characters, typically called a salt, and then hash the password with the salt and store it in a database. Code snippets are as such:

private static string CreateSalt(int size)
{
//Generate a cryptographic random number.
RNGCryptoServiceProvider rng = new RNGCryptoServiceProvider();
byte[] buff = new byte[size];
rng.GetBytes(buff);

// Return a Base64 string representation of the random number.
return Convert.ToBase64String(buff);
}

private static string CreatePasswordHash(string pwd, string salt)
{
string saltAndPwd = String.Concat(pwd, salt);
string hashedPwd =
FormsAuthentication.HashPasswordForStoringInConfigFile(
saltAndPwd, "sha1");

return hashedPwd;
}

Store the PasswordHash and salt in the database in the user's account.

Then, when the user attempts to logon the next time, grab the salt from the database and hash it as usual with the password provided by the user during logon and compare that value to the PasswordHash in the database. If they are the same, the user provided the correct password (whatever that may be). If they are not the same, the password entered was incorrect.

These are common ASP.NET security routines that should be in your own personal library for use over and over again. Keep the database specific details out of the library as the actual database and table schemas may change from project to project. Just pass in variables representing the user supplied username and password and the HashedPassword and Salt in the user database. Build these good security practices once and re-use over and over again.

Event Delegation in asp.net

2010-09-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

Hi friends
I m demonstrate the Event delegation in asp.net.
I am developing a simple asp.net project that handle the event of the web user control to the aspx page.

in simple means click event of the web user control’s button is handle in aspx page.

Create new website. there are default.aspx page

Add new Web User Control named “EventControl.ascx”

in the EventControl.ascx page write the following code.

in the EventControl.ascx.cs page

means we have created event delegate in the EventControl.ascx.cs page now we can code it to default.aspx page.

means in the click event of the EventControl.ascx is written in the default.aspx page.

Now In the Default.aspx file‍

now in the default.aspx.cs file. we are creating the handler of the event

Cookies in silverlight

2010-09-05T23:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

here i demonstrate how to set the cookies and get the values of the cookies and set the values of the cookies in the silverlight. for that i am making 2 function named GetCookie() and SetCookie().

in my project i have 2 textbox for the key and the value of the cookies then 1 button that set the value of the cookies by the key and then one button that show the cookies value by the key.

Note : For using the cookie, you have to add namespance “System.Windows.Browser”.

Step 1 : Create new silverlight project.

Step 2 : in mainpage.xaml file

Step 3 : my mainpage.xaml.cs file

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Animation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using System.Windows.Browser;
namespace SilverlightCookies
{
public partial class MainPage : UserControl
{
public MainPage()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

private void SetCookie(string key, string value)
{

DateTime expireDate = DateTime.Now + TimeSpan.FromHours(1);
string newCookie = key + "=" + value + ";expires=" + expireDate.ToString("R");
HtmlPage.Document.SetProperty("cookie", newCookie);
}

private string GetCookie(string key)
{
string[] cookies = HtmlPage.Document.Cookies.Split(';');
foreach (string cookie in cookies)
{
string[] keyValue = cookie.Split('=');
if (keyValue.Length == 2)
{
if (keyValue[0].ToString().Trim() == key.Trim())
return keyValue[1];
}
}
return null;
}

private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
SetCookie(txtCookieskey.Text.Trim(), txtCookiesValue.Text.Trim());
LblCookies.Text = "Cookes has been Created";
}

private void Button_Click_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
LblDisplayCookies.Text = GetCookie(txtCookieskey.Text.Trim());
LblCookies.Text = "Display Cookies of " + txtCookieskey.Text;
}
}
}

Step 4 : Run the application…

for this you get 2 textbox and 2 button.

when i input the key and value in the textbox and press button of “Set Cookies”, it set the key of cookies by that value and when i click on “get Cookies” by typing key value in key textbox, it show me the value of the key in cookie.

E-learning

2010-09-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching, which are procedural in character and aim to effect the construction of knowledge with reference to individual experience, practice and knowledge of the learner. Information and communication systems, whether networked or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process[1].

E-learning is essentially the computer and network enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self paced or instructor led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio.

Benefits

eLearning can provide benefits for the organizations and individuals involved.

1. Increased access: Instructors of the highest calibre can share their knowledge across borders, allowing students to attend courses across physical, political, and economic boundaries. Recognized experts have the opportunity of making information available internationally, to anyone interested at minimum costs. For example, the MIT OpenCourseWare program has made substantial portions of that university's curriculum and lectures available for free online.
2. Convenience and flexibility to learners: in many contexts, eLearning is self-paced and the learning sessions are available 24x7. Learners are not bound to a specific day/time to physically attend classes. They can also pause learning sessions at their convenience. High technology is not necessary for all online courses. Basic internet access, audio, and video capabilities are common requirements.[2] Depending on the technology used, students can begin their courses while at work and finish those at an alternate internet equipped location.
3. Skill Development: To develop the skills and competencies needed in the 21st century, in particular to ensure that learners have the digital literacy skills required in their discipline, profession or career. Bates (2009)[3] states that a major argument for eLearning is that it enables learners to develop essential skills for knowledge-based workers by embedding the use of information and communications technologies within the curriculum. He also argues that using eLearning in this way has major implications for course design and the assessment of learners.

Computer-based learning

Computer-based learning, sometimes abbreviated to CBL, refers to the use of computers as a key component of the educational environment. While this can refer to the use of computers in a classroom, the term more broadly refers to a structured environment in which computers are used for teaching purposes.
[edit] Computer-based training

Computer-Based Trainings (CBTs) are self-paced learning activities accessible via a computer or handheld device. CBTs typically present content in a linear fashion, much like reading an online book or manual. For this reason they are often used to teach static processes, such as using software or completing mathematical equations. The term Computer-Based Training is often used interchangeably with Web-based training (WBT) with the primary difference being the delivery method. Where CBTs are typically delivered via CD-ROM, WBTs are delivered via the Internet using a web browser. Assessing learning in a CBT usually comes in the form of multiple choice questions, or other assessments that can be easily scored by a computer such as drag-and-drop, radial button, simulation or other interactive means. Assessments are easily scored and recorded via online software, providing immediate end-user feedback and completion status. Users are often able to print completion records in the form of certificates.

CBTs provide learning stimulus beyond traditional learning methodology from textbook, manual, or classroom-based instruction. For example, CBTs offer user-friendly solutions for satisfying continuing education requirements. Instead of limiting students to attending courses or reading printing manuals, students are able to acquire knowledge and skills through methods that are much more conducive to individual learning preferences.[citation needed] For example, CBTs offer visual learning benefits through animation or video, not typically offered by any other means.[citation needed]

CBTs can be a good alternative to printed learning materials since rich media, including videos or animations, can easily be embedded to enhance the learning. Another advantage to CBTs are that they can be easily distributed to a wide audience at a relatively low cost once the initial development is completed.[citation needed]

However, CBTs pose some learning challenges as well. Typically the creation of effective CBTs requires enormous resources. The software for developing CBTs (such as Flash or Adobe Director) is often more complex than a subject matter expert or teacher is able to use. In addition, the lack of human interaction can limit both the type of content that can be presented as well as the type of assessment that can be performed. Many learning organizations are beginning to use smaller CBT/WBT activities as part of a broader online learning program which may include online discussion or other interactive elements.

Visual Studio 2010

2010-09-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

On April 12, 2010, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010, codenamed Dev10, and .Net Framework4 Visual Studio 2010 IDE has been redesigned which, according to Microsoft, clears the UI organization and "reduces clutter and complexity. Visual Studio 2010 comes with .NET Framework 4 and supports developing applications targeting Windows 7. It supports IBM DB2 and Oracle databases , in addition to Microsoft SQL Server. It has integrated support for developing Microsoft Silverlight applications, including an interactive designer. Visual Studio 2010 offers several tools to make parallel programming simpler: in addition to the Parallel Extensions for the .NET Framework and the Parallel Patterns Library for native code, Visual Studio 2010 includes tools for debugging parallel applications. The new tools allow the visualization of parallel Tasks and their runtime stacks. The Visual Studio 2010 code editor now highlights references; whenever a symbol is selected, all other usages of the symbol are highlighted. It also offers a Quick Search feature to incrementally search across all symbols in C++, C# and VB.NET projects.

Visual Studio 2010 has New and enhanced features that help to unleash our creativity and Customise our workspace with multiple monitor support. Create rich applications for SharePoint and the Web. Eliminate the dreaded "no repro" problem with IntelliTrace. Develop for a wide range of .NET Framework versions with precise multi-targeting.

Visual Studio Ultimate 2010

Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 includes a Historical Debugger for managed code called IntelliTrace. Unlike the current debugger, that records only the currently-active stack, IntelliTrace records all events like prior function calls, method parameters, events, exceptions etc. This allows the code execution to be rewound in case a breakpoint wasn't set where the error occurred. IntelliTrace will cause the application to run slower than the current debugger, and will use more memory as additional data needs to be recorded. Microsoft allows configuration of how much data should be recorded, in effect allowing developers to balance speed of execution and resource usage. The Lab Management component of Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 uses virtualization to create a similar execution environment for testers and developers. The virtual machines are tagged with checkpoints which can later be investigated for issues, as well as to reproduce the issue. Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 also includes the capability to record test runs that capture the specific state of the operating environment as well as the precise steps used to run the test. These steps can then be played back to reproduce issues.

VISUAL STUDIO 2010 EDITIONS

Professional, Premium, Ultimate and Test Professional. Each edition of Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 was built with the specific needs of individual developers and development teams in mind
1. Visual Studio 2010 Professional

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional is the essential tool for individuals performing basic development tasks. It simplifies the creation, debugging and deployment of applications on a variety of
platforms including SharePoint and the Cloud. Visual Studio 2010 Professional comes with integrated support for test-driven development, as well as debugging tools that help ensure high-quality solutions.
2. Visual Studio 2010 Premium

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium is a complete toolset that simplifies application development for individuals or teams, allowing the delivery of deliver scalable, high-quality applications. Whether writing application or database code, building databases, testing or debugging you can increase your productivity using powerful tools that work the way you work.
3. Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate is the comprehensive suite of application lifecycle management tools for teams to ensure quality results, from design to deployment. Whether you're creating new solutions or enhancing existing applications, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate lets you bring your vision to life targeting an increasing number of platforms and technologies — including cloud and parallel computing.
4. Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional is a specialised toolset for quality assurance teams that simplifies test planning and manual test execution. Test Professional works in conjunction with Visual Studio software for developers, enabling effective collaboration between developers and testers throughout the application development lifecycle.

ASP.NET Web Application Security

2010-09-01T04:09:00.000-07:00

Securing an ASP.NET application requires a clear understanding of all the security options provided in ASP.NET, and how all the various security subsystems interact.

How ASP.NET Security Works

The ASP.NET security framework accomplishes this by working in conjunction with the various security subsystems present in the machine where ASP.NET is installed. This includes security provided by the operating system ( NTFS file access permissions ) as well as security provided by IIS ( host or IP address authorization ).

And since ASP.NET is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, the ASP.NET application developer also has access to all of the built-in security features of the .NET Framework, such as code access security and role-based user-access security.

It is imperative to understand how the various security subsystems interact, to be able to secure your ASP.NET application effectively.

ASP.NET Security Architecture.

IIS always assumes that a set of credentials maps to a Windows NT account and uses them to authenticate a user. There are three different kinds of authentication available in IIS 5.0: basic, digest, and Integrated Windows Authentication ( NTLM or Kerberos ). You can select the type of authentication to use in the IIS administrative services

Setting up a LAN using Linux

2010-09-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

Linux is increasingly popular in the computer networking/telecommunications industry.
Acquiring the Linux operating system is a relatively simple and inexpensive task
since virtually all of the source code can be downloaded from several different
FTP or HTTP sites on the Internet. In addition, the most recent version of Red Hat
Linux can be purchased from computer retail stores for between $25 and $50, depending
on whether you purchase the standard or full version. The retail brand is indeed
a worthwhile investment (vs. the free FTP or HTTP versions) since valuable technical
support is included directly from the Red Hat Linux engineers for at least a year.
This can be very helpful if, for instance, you can not resolve an installation/configuration
problem after consulting the Red Hat Linux manuals.

This article describes how to put together a Local Area Network (LAN) consisting
of two or more computers using the Red Hat Linux 6.2 operating system. A LAN
is a communications network that interconnects a variety of devices and provides
a means for exchanging information among those devices. The size and scope of a
LAN is usually small, covering a single building or group of buildings. In a LAN,
modems and phone lines are not required, and the computers should be close enough
to run a network cable between them.

For each computer that will participate in the LAN, you'll need a network interface
card (NIC) to which the network cable will be attached. You will also need to assign
a unique hostname and IP address to each computer in the LAN (described later in
this article), but this requires a basic understanding of TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol).

Introduction to TCP/IP

TCP/IP is the suite of protocols used by the Internet and most LANs throughout the
world. In TCP/IP, every host (computer or other communications device) that is connected
to the network has a unique IP address. An IP address is composed of four octets
(numbers in the range of 0 to 255) separated by decimal points. The IP address is
used to uniquely identify a host or computer on the LAN. For example, a computer
with the hostname Morpheus could have an IP address of 192.168.7.127. You should
avoid giving two or more computers the same IP address by using the range of IP
addresses that are reserved for private, local area networks; this range of IP addresses
usually begins with the octets 192.168.

LAN network address The first three octets of an IP address should be the
same for all computers in the LAN. For example, if a total of 128 hosts exist in
a single LAN, the IP addresses could be assigned starting with 192.168.1.x,
where x represents a number in the range of 1 to 128. You could create consecutive
LANs within the same company in a similar manner consisting of up to another 128
computers. Of course, you are not limited to 128 computers, as there are other ranges
of IP addresses that allow you to build even larger networks.

There are different classes of networks that determine the size and total possible
unique IP addresses of any given LAN. For example, a class A LAN can have over 16
million unique IP addresses. A class B LAN can have over 65,000 unique IP addresses.
The size of your LAN depends on which reserved address range you use and the subnet
mask (explained later in the article) associated with that range (see Table 1.).

Table 1. Address ranges and LAN sizes

Address range	Subnet mask	Provides	Addresses per LAN
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255.255	255.0.0.0	1 class A LAN	16,777,216
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255	255.255.0.0	16 class B LANs	65,536
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255	25.255.255.0	256 class C LANs	256

Network and broadcast addresses

Another important aspect of building a LAN is that the addresses at the two extreme
ends of the address range are reserved for use as the LAN's network address and
broadcast address. The network address is used by an application to represent
the overall network. The broadcast address is used by an application to send
the same message to all other hosts in the network simultaneously.

For example, if you use addresses in the range of 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.128,
the first address (192.168.1.0) is reserved as the network address, and the last
address (192.168.1.128) is reserved as the broadcast address. Therefore, you only
assign individual computers on the LAN IP addresses in the range of 192.168.1.1
to 192.168.1.127:

Network address:	192.168.1.0
Individual hosts:	192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.127
Broadcast address:	192.168.1.128

Subnet masks

Each host in a LAN has a subnet mask. The subnet mask is an octet that uses
the number 255 to represent the network address portion of the IP address and a
zero to identify the host portion of the address. For example, the subnet mask 255.255.255.0
is used by each host to determine which LAN or class it belongs to. The zero at
the end of the subnet mask represents a unique host within that network.

Domain name

The domain name, or network name, is a unique name followed by a standard
Internet suffixes such as .com, .org, .mil, .net, etc. You can pretty much name
your LAN anything if it has a simple dial-up connection and your LAN is not a server
providing some type of service to other hosts directly. In addition, our sample
network is considered private since it uses IP addresses in the range of 192.168.1.x.
Most importantly, the domain name of choice should not be accessible from the Internet
if the above constraints are strictly enforced. Lastly, to obtain an "official"
domain name you could register through InterNIC, Network Solutions or Register.com.
See the Resources section later in this article for the
Web sites with detailed instructions for obtaining official domain names.

Hostnames

Another important step in setting up a LAN is assigning a unique hostname to each
computer in the LAN. A hostname is simply a unique name that can be made up and
is used to identify a unique computer in the LAN. Also, the name should not contain
any blank spaces or punctuation. For example, the following are valid hostnames
that could be assigned to each computer in a LAN consisting of 5 hosts: hostname
1 - Morpheus; hostname 2 - Trinity; hostname 3 - Tank; hostname 4 - Oracle; and
hostname 5 - Dozer. Each of these hostnames conforms to the requirement that no
blank spaces or punctuation marks are present. Use short hostnames to eliminate
excessive typing, and choose a name that is easy to remember.

Table 2 summarizes what we have covered so far in this article. Every host in the
LAN will have the same network address, broadcast address, subnet mask, and domain
name because those addresses identify the network in its entirety. Each computer
in the LAN will have a hostname and IP address that uniquely identifies that particular
host. The network address is 192.168.1.0, and the broadcast address is 192.168.1.128.
Therefore, each host in the LAN must have an IP address between 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.127.

Table 2. Sample IP addresses for a LAN with 127 or fewer interconnected
computers

IP address	Example	Same/unique
Network address	192.168.1.0	Same for all hosts
Domain name	www.yourcompanyname.com	Same for all hosts
Broadcast address	192.168.1.128	Same for all hosts
Subnet mask	255.255.255.0	Same for all hosts
Hostname	Any valid name	Unique to each host
Host addresses	192.168.1.x	x must be unique to each host

Assigning IP addresses in a LAN

There are two ways to assign IP addresses in a LAN. You can manually assign a static
IP address to each computer in the LAN, or you can use a special type of server
that automatically assigns a dynamic IP address to each computer as it logs
into the network.

Static IP addressing

Static IP addressing means manually assigning a unique IP address to each computer
in the LAN. The first three octets must be the same for each host, and the last
digit must be a unique number for each host. In addition, a unique hostname will
need to be assigned to each computer. Each host in the LAN will have the same network
address (192.168.1.0), broadcast address (192.168.1.128), subnet mask (255.255.255.0),
and domain name (yourcompanyname.com). It's a good idea to start by visiting each
computer in the LAN and jotting down the hostname and IP address for future reference.

Dynamic IP addressing

Dynamic IP addressing is accomplished via a server or host called DHCP (Dynamic
Host Configuration Program) that automatically assigns a unique IP address to each
computer as it connects to the LAN. A similar service called BootP can also automatically
assign unique IP addresses to each host in the network. The DHCP/ BootP service
is a program or device that will act as a host with a unique IP address. An example
of a DHCP device is a router that acts as an Ethernet hub (a communications device
that allows multiple host to be connected via an Ethernet jack and a specific port)
on one end and allows a connection to the Internet on the opposite end. Furthermore,
the DHCP server will also assign the network and broadcast addresses. You will not
be required to manually assign hostnames and domain names in a dynamic IP addressing
scheme.

The LAN hardware

Assigning hostname and IP addresses will be useless if there is no hardware available
to connect all the computers together. There are several different types of hardware
schemes such as Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, Token Bus, etc. Since Ethernet is the
most widely used hardware scheme, we will focus our attention on it. Ethernet is
available from several different computer vendors, and it is relatively inexpensive.
Ethernet is a 10-Mbps baseband LAN specification developed by Xerox, Intel, and
Digital Equipment. In order to build an Ethernet hub you need the following: an
Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) for each computer, an Ethernet compatible
hub with at least the same number of ports as there will be computers in the LAN,
and Ethernet cables (or 10BaseT cables) to connect each computer's NIC to the Ethernet
hub.

Also make sure that the hardware of choice is compatible with the Red Hat Linux
operating system. This hardware/software compatibility information is usually found
in the Requirements section on the back of the box of each product. Alternatively,
you could ask a computer sales person about hardware/software requirements. You
can usually save money by purchasing LAN cards as a package vs. purchasing them
individually.

When choosing an Ethernet hub ensure that it contains at least as many ports as
there are computers that will participate in the LAN. It is always best to choose
a hub with additional ports to allow for expansion.

If you plan to use all of the computers in the LAN to access the Internet via a
local Internet Service Provider (ISP), the router/Ethernet combo is an ideal choice.
The router/Ethernet unit is normally configured using any computer that is connected
to the LAN. Assuming that all computers in the LAN will be running the Red Hat Linux
operating system, a router will be required that can be configured using a Linux
configuration program such as LinuxConf.

Finally, choose network cables to allow for expansion. Typically, most Ethernet
networks use 10BaseT cables with RJ45 jacks at each end. It's always a good idea
to purchase cables that are 1 or 2 times longer than the required length in case
the structure (topology) of the LAN changes in the future.

Installing the hardware

Assuming that all LAN hardware is available, the next step is to install it. First
turn off all the computers that will participate in the LAN. Next, open the case
on each computer and install each NIC in the appropriate slot on the motherboard,
being careful to follow the manufacturer's instructions.

Find a convenient but safe location for the Ethernet hub, preferably a centralized
location in the same building or room along with the computers. Next, run the cable
from the NIC in each computer to the Ethernet hub ensuring all cables are out of
the way of users who will need physical access to each computer in the LAN. Moreover,
make sure you follow all instructions provided with the LAN hardware before starting
up any of the computers that will participate in the LAN.

If you are using a router to connect the LAN to the Internet or using a DHCP server,
you will need to do some configuration as required by the user's manual. Lastly,
assuming all computers are attached to the Ethernet hub via the NIC and a specific
port on the hub, you can now begin the software configuration process using the
Red Hat operating system.

Configuring the LAN

How you configure the computers on the LAN will depend on whether the Red Hat OS
was installed before or after the LAN hardware. If you installed the LAN hardware
before installing Red Hat you will be prompted for network configuration during
the Red Hat installation process. However, if you installed the Red Hat OS after
the LAN hardware, a program called "Kudzu" will detect the newly installed Ethernet
card and initiate the configuration process automatically. Follow these steps when
configuring each Ethernet card using the "Kudzu" program:

During the bootup process look for a dialog box titled "Welcome to Kudzu." Press
Enter to begin the configuration process.
Next, you should see another dialog
box that displays the brand name for the installed Ethernet card. Press Enter again
to continue.
After a brief delay you should see "Would You Like to Set up Networking".

Select the NO option using the Tab key and then press Enter. I will describe setting
up networking using a utility called LinuxConf later in this article.

At this point, the bootup process should continue normally and you will be required
to log on to the computer as the root user. You should have been given the opportunity
to create a root account during the initial installation of Red Hat.

Using LinuxConf to configure your Ethernet card

You can use an application program called LinuxConf to configure or reconfigure
the NIC of each computer in the LAN. You can launch the LinuxConf utility by typing
linuxconf at the command prompt of any terminal window in the KDE or
GNOME desktop environment. Another way to start the LinuxConf utility is to click
the Main menu button, select System, then LinuxConf. When the LinuxConf application
is displayed, follow the steps below to configure the Ethernet card:

From the LinuxConf tree structure, select Config, Networking, Client Tasks, Basic
Host Information.

Type the fully qualified hostname that you assigned to this computer on the Host
name tab.
Next, click the Adaptor 1 tab, which displays your Ethernet card settings.

Verify that the Enabled button is selected to ensure that the Ethernet card will
be accessible.
Choose the Manual option if you will not be using a DHCP or BootP
server on your LAN and continue to step 6. Otherwise, if you
will be using a DHCP or BootP server, choose either DHCP or BootP accordingly and
continue to step 12.
Enter this computer's
hostname followed by a period and the domain name of the LAN for the Primary name
+ domain option.
Enter the computer's hostname in addition to any aliases separated
by a blank space under the Aliases option.
Enter the IP address assigned to
this computer next to IP Address (such as 192.168.1.1).
Type in 255.255.255.0
for the Netmask.

For net device, type eth0, which represents the first Ethernet card located inside
the computer.
The driver or Kernel Module option for the Ethernet card should
automatically be filled in upon exiting LinuxConf.
Click
the Accept button to activate all changes.
Repeat steps 1-12 for each computer
in the LAN, verifying that you've entered the correct hostname and the corresponding
IP address.

Nameserver specification

Another important step in setting up LAN is to configure the Nameserver specification,
which is used by Linux to look up IP addresses when only the computer's hostname
is given. There are two methods that are used by Red Hat Linux to resolve hostnames
into IP addresses. One method is via Domain Name Services (DNS), and the other is
by means of a local file at /etc/hosts. Locate the hosts file by typing cd /etc
to change to the /etc directory. The /etc directory is where most system configuration
files are found for each computer. Next, follow the steps below to resolve hostnames
into IP address using the /etc/hosts file:

In the left column of LinuxConf, open the Nameserver specification (DNS) category.
Left-click the DNS Usage option. (The button should be pushed in.)
Enter localdomain
next to the Search Domain 1 category.
If you know the primary and secondary
IP addresses for the nameserver, which should be available for this Ethernet card,
enter those in the IP of nameserver 1 and IP of nameserver 2 categories. Otherwise,
you can leave those categories blank.
Left-click the Accept button to activate
all changes.

Hostname search path

The hostname search path is used by Red Hat Linux to search for IP addresses assigned
to hostnames. To configure the hostname search path so that the local host (/etc/hosts)
file is used to resolve local hostnames, and the ISP domain services to resolve
Internet domain services, follow these steps:

In the left column of LinuxConf, open the Routing and Gateways category.
Select the Host Name Search path option.
In the right column of LinuxConf, select
the Multiple IPs for One Host option.
Select the hosts, dns option in the right
portion of LinuxConf.
Left-click the Accept button to activate all changes.

Setting up /etc/hosts

The Red Hat Linux OS needs some way to find IP addresses within the LAN based on
the each computer's hostname. I described earlier in the article that the Domain
Name Service (DNS) is one method of resolving hostnames into IP addresses. In a
DNS configuration the hostnames and IP addresses should already be listed in a pre-existing
nameserver. Consult your local ISP to obtain those IP addresses. On the other hand,
if there is a centralized nameserver, as with small LANs, a host file will need
to be configured on each computer that was assigned a hostname, IP address, and
any aliases. This configuration process involves editing a text file located at
/etc/host. You will need to go to one of the computers in the LAN and follow the
below steps in order to create and configure the /etc/hosts file:

In the left column of LinuxConf, open the Misc category.
Open the Information
about hosts category. You should see an entry for this computer that includes the
IP address, hostname, and any aliases.
Left-click the Add button once to add
an entry for another host in the LAN.
Type the Primary + Domain Name for another
host in the LAN in the dialog box that appears (such as trinity.yourcompanyname.com).
Type one or more aliases for this computer next to the Alias option (such as tank).
Enter the IP address for the hostname that you've assigned for this computer next
to IP number.
Left-click the Accept button to activate all changes.
Repeat steps 1-7 for each computer in your LAN.

After you have done steps 1-7 for all computers, the /etc/hosts tab of LinuxConf
should list one entry for every computer in your LAN, in addition to the local host's
loopback interface. The local host name should appear as localhost. Finally, you
can save all changes and exit the LinuxConf application by following the steps below:

Left-click the Quit button in the /etc/host screen after all hostnames and IP addresses
have been entered.
To exit the LinuxConf application, left-click the Quit button
at the bottom-left corner.
Left-click the Activate the Changes button to activate
all changes and exit LinuxConf.

Repeat for every host

Now that you have configured one computer in you LAN, you will need to go back and
repeat all the above steps for each computer starting with the section
"Configuring the LAN". If you would prefer a less time-consuming procedure
of configuring each computer, you can modify the /etc/hosts file on each computer
manually using a copy method.

You can copy the /etc/hosts file that you have just created to a floppy disk or
CD-ROM (if you have a writeable CD-ROM drive) and copy that file to the /etc directory
of each computer in your LAN. To copy the /etc/hosts file to a floppy disk, type
the command cp /etc/hosts /mnt/floppy at the command prompt. Do this
on the computer where you configured the initial /etc/hosts file using the LinuxConf
utility.

Next, take the floppy to each computer in the LAN and type the command cp /mnt/floppy hosts /etc/host in a terminal window. This will copy the hosts file to
the /etc directory on each host. If you are using a CD-ROM, replace the /mnt/floppy/
in the above commands with //mnt/cdrom/ to copy files to and from a
writeable CD-ROM. The /etc/hosts file, as you probably noticed, is just a text file
with a list of hostnames and IP addresses separated into three columns. Lastly,
make sure that the local computer and its associated IP address are listed twice
and all the other computers in the LAN are listed only once.

Testing the LAN

To test the completely configured LAN, make sure that the computers are able to
communicate with each other after the bootup process. You can start by typing reboot at the command prompt at a command terminal on each computer.
This allows you to monitor the testing information that scrolls down the screen
as a standard procedure during the Linux boot process. Look for the following information:

Setting hostname:	<hostname you assigned to this computer>
Bringing up Interface lo:	<OK> or <FAILED>
Bringing up interface eth0	<OK> or <FAILED>

The Setting hostname field should display the hostname that you assigned for this
computer. The lo and eth0 interfaces should display [OK] to indicate that both tests
were successful.

To determine whether each computer can communicate with every other computer in
the LAN, use the ping command. Open any terminal window on the current host and
type the command ping <IP address> or <hostname>, where
<IP address> or <hostname> is the IP address and/or the hostname that
you assigned to this computer. Note that you must type either the IP address or
the hostname in order for the ping command to work properly.

If you have configured the DNS nameserver specification properly, the ping <hostname>
command should resolve the hostname into a corresponding IP address. Otherwise,
you will need to use the IP address that you should currently already have listed
for all computers in the LAN. The ping command will send messages across the LAN
to the designated IP address or computer. You should see several messages or packets
(consisting of bytes of information) if the computers are "talking" or communicating
with each other. These packets look similar to the following:

64 bytes from 192.168.1.x : icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.8ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.x : icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.8ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.x : icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.8ms

Note that the "192.168.1" represents the LAN that this particular host is a member
of and the x indicates the specific host number that you are attempting to ping
(e.g. such as Oracle) which jointly makes up the IP address. You can press the Ctrl+C
to terminate the test and you should see the following basic information about the
entire ping test:

--- hostname.yourcompanyname.com ping statistics  ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.3/0.4/0.8 ms

Verify that the packet loss is 0%, which is an immediate indication that the test
was successful. However, there is a problem if the ping command results in the following
message:

From hostname.comanyname.com (192.168.1.1): Destination Host Unreachable

This is an immediate indication that the two computers are not communicating at
all. If the computers are not communicating, see the next section, "Troubleshooting
the LAN". Otherwise, when you can successfully ping all other computers
in the LAN from one designated computer, the overall basic communications functionality
is indeed a success. At this point, you can consider this LAN to be a fully functional
network that you can install and on which you can configure various network services
as desired.

Troubleshooting the LAN

If you are unable to ping another computer in the LAN, here's how to get to the
source of the problem. First of all, it's a good idea to shut down every computer
in the LAN using the halt command. At the command prompt on each computer, type
halt. The main reason for shutting down all computers is to monitor
feedback from the boot process when each computer is started up again.

Check all cable connections between every computer, making sure that all RJ45 jacks
are connected properly. After verifying that all the cables are secured properly,
start each computer one at a time and look for the following response during the
boot process:

Setting hostname: hostname.networkname  [OK]

You can turn on the interactive mode by typing I at the LILO boot prompt during
the initial bootup process of Red Hat to get a closer view of the feedback. Ensure
that the hostname and network name that was assigned to this computer is spelled
correctly. If this is not the case, you will need to return to the Basic Host Information
section of LinuxConf. In interactive mode you will be prompted to start several
services. Respond to each question with Yes and pay close attention to results of
various tests. If the Kudzu program detects an Ethernet card, then this an indication
that the card was not properly configured the first time around. Proceed to let
Kudzu configure the card. When you are prompted to configure the network, choose
"Yes" and type the correct IP address and other related information for this particular
computer.

Another important response to examine carefully is the following:

Bringing up interface eth0  [OK]

This line indicates whether the Ethernet card is working properly. If this test
fails you should check all network settings using LinuxConf to ensure that the card
was configured properly. If the network settings are correct, there is probably
a defect in the Ethernet card itself. In order to verify this, consult the manufacturer
of the Ethernet card or a computer technician to determine whether or not the card
is defective. Repeat the preceding troubleshooting procedures on each new Ethernet
card installed.

Agile Enterprise Integration Software

2010-09-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

Stone Bond Technologies, has released Version 7.0 of their core offering, Enterprise Enabler®.Stone Bond Technologies is a Microsoft Gold Partner and an award-winning agile integration software provider that offers effective solutions for a large variety of business challenges. Our core product, Enterprise Enabler, automates complex bi-directional aggregation, transformation and manipulation of entities among multiple line of business applications. Stone Bond's software can be used to dramatically reduce costs, improve business process productivity, and rapidly create the "agile" enterprise.

An established agile integration platform, Enterprise Enabler is now available in its next version with enhanced architecture and features, including a single application definition model instantly portable across ADO.Net, WSS 2.0/3.0 (Windows SharePoint Services), SharePoint Foundation 2010 (WSS 4.0), (MOSS) Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007, SharePoint 2010 and virtually any DOT.Net based application.
Enterprise Enabler enhances the capability of dashboards, business intelligence, analytics and SharePoint through standard ADO.Net interface, eliminating the need for staging databases by providing real time access to data aligned and merged from multiple sources. In the tradition of Enterprise Enabler and agile integration software, all of these capabilities are based on little or no programming, with a range of scalability from a low cost single use case to full enterprise deployment.
Enterprise Enabler Version 7.0 extends all SharePoint connectivity to access ANY data source, such as web services, Microsoft .NET Objects, MS Dynamics CRM, MS Dynamics AX, SAP, Salesforce.com, SQL, DB2, and many other applications. With codeless integration, the end user can visually build connectivity, create relationships across multiple sources, and map them to an ADO.Net object. By simply reading and writing to the Enterprise Enabler ADO.Net driver, data access and transformation is handled automatically behind the scenes, providing the same data access capabilities across all WSS that is available in SharePoint 2010 through the Business Connectivity Services (BCS), including write-back to data sources with full CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) capabilities.
The IT (Information Technology) teams have a powerful connectivity tool to successfully complete integration initiatives without being forced to learn every completely different endpoint system or application they need to integrate. The business decision maker can establish an IT infrastructure behind the scenes with implementation at half the cost. For ISVs (Independent Software Vendors), Enterprise Enabler offers a completely embeddable and rebrandable technology with a highly flexible licensing model.”

XPCOM

2010-08-31T03:59:00.000-07:00

XPCOM (Cross Platform Component Object Model)

XPCOM is Mozilla's cross-platform component object model. Although it is similar to Microsoft's COM technology, Essentially, when you program in a component-based environment, you do one of three things: you create a new component using existing components, write a component that implements other components, and establish interdependencies and a service network.

XPCOM similar to (Cross Platform Component Object Model) is a cross platform component modelCORBA or Microsoft COM. It has multiplelanguage bindings and IDL descriptions so programmers can plug their custom functionality into the framework and connect it with other components.

XPCOM is one of the main things that makes the Mozilla applicationenvironment an actual framework. It is a development environment that provides the following
features for the cross-platform software developer:

• Component management
• File abstraction
• Object message passing
• Memory management

This component object model makes virtually all of the functionality of Gecko available as a series of components, or reusable cross-platform libraries, that can be accessed from the web browser or scripted from any Mozilla application. Applications that want to access the various Mozilla XPCOM libraries (networking, security, DOM, etc.) use a special layer of XPCOM called XPConnect, which reflects the library interfaces into JavaScript (or other languages). XPConnect glues the front end to the C++ or C programming language-based components in XPCOM, and it can be extended to include scripting support for other languages: PyXPCOM already offers support for Python, PerlConnect provides support for Perl, and there are efforts underway to add .NET and Ruby language support for XPConnect.

On the developer side, XPCOM lets you write components in C++, C, JavaScript, Python, or other languages for which special bindings have been created, and compile and run those components on dozens of different platforms, including these and others where Mozilla itself is supported

Midori

2010-08-31T02:34:00.000-07:00

Forget Windows: Midori is coming

WINDOWS is a name that has ruled the whole computer world since its first launch in November 1985. Since then it is like a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The code name Midori was first discovered through the Power Point presentation CHESS: A systematic testing tool for concurrent software.
Microsoft is developing a non-windows operating system, named as Midori. Midori will be mainly focusing on tackling challenges which Redmond has determined before, where it can’t be met by simply evolving its existing technology. Midori also seems to be internet centric and predicted on the prevalence of connected systems. Midori seems to be a gradual development obtained on Microsoft Research’s singularity OS, having completely managed code of tools and libraries.

With many advanced versions of Windows available today such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, it is the most used operating system in the world. In 2010, Microsoft is going to launch WINDOWS 2007, but now here is time to experience a yet another technology of operating systems.

MIDORI is an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity operating system. In this the tools and libraries are completely managed code. MIDORI is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), will be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

MIDORI can be also seen as MICROSOFT'S answer those competitors who are applying "Virtualization" as a mean to solving issues within contemporary computing.

The main idea behind MIDORI is to develop a lightweight portable OS which can be mated easily to lots of various applications.

IMPORTANCE OF MIDORI

For knowing the importance of MIDORI you have to think about, how an operating system is loaded on a computer. Actually operating system is loaded onto a hard disk physically located on that machine. In this way, the operating system is tied very tightly to that hardware. As Windows is dependent on hardware, it might face opposition from contemporary ways of working because people are extremely mobile in using different devices in order get diverse information.

Website Optimization

2010-08-31T02:27:00.000-07:00

It is important to optimize your website for catch your target user to your website. Website optimization is the process of specifically designing your webpages to rank high in the Search Engines. Many Search Engines are no longer using Meta tags to assist them in ranking a webpage, some still do, and it's worth the effort to include them. When designing your webpage, you must specifically design it to rank high in the Search Engines. This involves much more than just including META tags. Your Keywords, Title, Image Alt text, Text and overall design, all play an important role in determining how your website will rank. If your site doesn't rank in the top 10 or 20 results when doing a keyword search at the Search Engines, your target audience won't be able to find you. A significant amount of website traffic originates from the major Search Engines. Most Internet users will go to a Search Engine, type in a keyword phrase and look through the top 10 - 20 results. Most of the time, they'll find what they're looking for in the first 10 results. The percentage of click throughs is even smaller. Listing near the top and grabbing the attention of your target audience is the top priority. There are many components of your webpage that you should pay close attention to when preparing it for listing in a Search Engine.
The first step towards improving your listing is selecting keyword phrases that best reflect your webpage. Selecting the BEST and unique keyword phrases is the MOST important step towards optimizing your pages for the Search Engines. Next you have to focus on Meta Description of your website. Your description should focus on your site's main topic and not generalize. Make sure you include your most important keywords towards the beginning of your description. In addition, make sure your description describes your page in detail. You want your potential visitors to know exactly what you're offering. Your description should be less than 200 characters, including spaces. Other things you have to focus on designing your website are IMG ALT Tags, Title of the page, Heading and Text, Tables, Body Text, Hyper Links etc. Your Title should contain your most important keyword phrase. Heading tags are used to separate topics and range from h1 being very large and bold to h6 which is very small and bold. Your page heading should contain your most important keyword phrase to assist you in ranking higher in the Search Engines. Not all Search Engines place relevance on heading tags. However, many do and it is well worth the effort. Optimizing your text is another important step in ranking higher in the Search Engines. Your webpage should contain plenty of text and should contain each of your keywords and keyword phrases used in different variations. If all of your keywords and keyword phrases you've listed within your META tags aren't found within your text, the Search Engines will simply ignore them. Your keywords and keyword phrases should appear within your text at least three times, but not more than seven.If you'd like to set up your webpage using tables, try to place your Heading text above your Table code. If this isn't possible, make sure you include your keyword phrases within your top left Table cell to assist you in ranking higher in the Search Engines.

Silverlight Prism 2.0

2010-08-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

Prism 2.0 will focus on two things:

Extending the guidance delivered in Prism 1.0 for building composite WPF applications to also support composite Silverlight applications.
Adding guidance for building 'multi-headed' applications - applications that can deliver both a desktop and an in-browser experience.

Extending Prism to support Silverlight as well as WPF essentially means that we'll be porting Prism 1.0 to run on Silverlight (including Unity, the default Prism DI container), and implementing additional patterns and strategies to better support the RIA environment, especially around the module discovery, module loading, logging and data access areas.

Supporting multi-headed applications is primarily about implementing the patterns and infrastructure that maximize the possibility for sharing code and components between the two environments, and for allowing an application to integrate environment specific functionality so that it can take full advantage of WPF/Desktop or Silverlight/Browser specific features. The key scenario here is for applications that wants to deliver a feature rich desktop experience, as well as a wide reach browser experience.

MVVM (ICommand) in Silverlight

2010-08-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

There is no support for commands in Silverlight. When the user manipulates controls in your view you will have to write code that modifies the view-model in the code-behind for your view. This might be something as simple as calling a method on the view-model when the user clicks a button in the view. By using PRISM you are able to create attached properties in the XAML for your view to get rid of these event-handlers, but if you would rather not use PRISM you can simply stick to using event handlers.

One other aspect you will have to handle is modifying the view when the view-model changes. In particular you will want to enable and disable controls based on the state of the view-model. To achieve this you will have to bind the IsEnabled property of a control to something in the view-model that reflects if a certain operation is allowed. Implementing custom IValueConverter objects that converts to boolean values are often useful. For instance, if your view-model has a property that represents a count and you want a particular control in the view to only be enabled when the count is greater than zero you can create a value converter that converts to true when the number is greater than zero and use this value converter in the binding.

If you try to adapt a WPF example of an MVVM application you will have to get rid of all uses of commands and substitute your own code. The code in your example is not meaningful in Silverligt, but in WPF it is involved in the process of determining if a control in the view is enabled, visible etc.

ActiveX Controls:
AOL:
Background Sounds:
CDF:
.NET Framework:
Cookies:
ECMA:
HTML Frames:
Java Applets:
Browser Version:
Broswer Platform: