Ten Cool Things You Didn't Know About Visual Studio 2010

Ten Cool Things You Didn't Know About Visual Studio 2010

 I'm sharing the ten most useful of these in this article.

1. Pin variables when debugging

At debugging when hovering over variables the "Pin variable" option appears. Clicking on this makes the variable stick next to the source code until removed (and the pin stays there between debugging sessions). It is a really hand utility eliminating having to add variables to the Watch window one by one or search through the Locals window to find the variable one's looking for. Definitely one of the top 3 new features I use on a day to day basis!

2. Box selection

While holding down the Alt key box selection can be made on the screen. At first glance this feature doesn't seem to useful. However when typing anything in the selection the same text appears in all lines. So this selection is extremely useful for mass renaming of e.g. visibilities or anything else that involves changing the same thing in all lines.

3. Search on-the-fly

When pressing Crtl and , (comma)  the new Navigate To window appears. This is a real-time search window offering basically the same functionality as the Find and Replace window (opened by Crtl + Shift + F) but doing it on-the fly, without having to wait seconds for search results. So the list of results updates the moment you type the next letter in your search expression. Scott said that the search database used by this window is built continously in the background by Visual Studio.

4. Zooming

There's a small zoom drop down box on the left bottom of the application. It's barely noticeable but is really useful when showing your code to someone else or doing presentations. Not a function you'll use too often but comes handy every once in a while!

(Note: zooming can also be used with Crtl + mouse scroll)

5. View Call Hierarchy

Exploring code has been made much easier with the new View Call Hierarchy command in the context menu when right clicking a method. The Call Hierarchy window shows calls from the method, calls to the method and overrides of the method (if any). This little add-on makes exploring someone else's code so much easier.

6. Sequence Diagrams

The professional and above versions of Visual Studio 2010 come with built-in sequence diagram generation functionality. Simply right click on the method and select Generate Sequence Diagram to get a nifty call sequence diagram.

7. Dependency Graphs

The professional and above versions of Visual Studio 2010 come with a built-in dependency graph generator that generates an interactive, browsable dependency graph. When there is a large number of object this graph can get overwhelmingly large. However the fact that it can track dependencies at assembly, namespace and class level as well make it a useful tool for getting an idea for the project dependencies.

8. IntelliTrace and Dump Debugging

Ever had clients submitting bug reports that you were unable to reproduce and made you wish you could just debug right on their machine? IntelliTrace brings this to reality. When running an application with IntelliTrace enabled it records the series of events happening within it and lets the developer play these back. Note however that IntelliTrace collects less information than one might need at debugging and also has a slight performance overhead when turned on. IntelliTrace is only available in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. For more information on Intellitrace see MSDN.
Dump Debugging is the feature that enables to open dump files from production machines and debug those. This is a great feature to use for debugging crashes happening on a production machine. See a video on how to use this feature on Channel 9.

9. Multi-monitor support

Few people knew that Visual Studio 2008 actually had multi-monitor support. You just had to launch an instance on each monitor! Aside from this joke, this feature was one that was really wanted. Now windows can be positioned across monitors making developing and debugging a much better overview on dual screens.

10. Intellisense - lots of small improvements

Intellisense has gone through lots of small improvements. The most important ones are:

• When selecting any variable all instances of it are highlighted - a well needed improvement that has been around for in lots of text editors
• Search is not limited to prefixes any more, it is done within strings. So when typing time for example, DateTime will be offered as well (previously only names starting with time were)
• Intellisense can search just knowing the capital letters of a class. When searching e.g. for HttpCachePolicy it's enough to type HCP - nice!
• Javascript intellisense is extensive: all major Javascript libraries are supported (JQuery, Ext.JS, Prototype). Expressions are also evaluated on the fly and Intellisense is offered accordingly.

8 New Things To Check Out in Visual Studio 2013

From Peek Definitions to scroll bar customization, here are eight of the most helpful features you'll want to explore in Visual Studio 2013.

With the release of Visual Studio 2013, there are plenty of new things to try out. In this article, I've highlighted the eight features which I consider to be the most helpful all around. Whether you work by yourself or on a team, these new features can save you time and improve your development experience. Note that there may be slight discrepancies between what you see in this article and what you see in Visual Studio 2013, as this article was written based on the latest release candidate (RC) of Visual Studio 2013, which became available in October 2013.
1: Prototyping and Throw-Away Applications
One of the first things you may notice when starting Visual Studio 2013 is that the "New Project" window looks a bit different, as shown in Figure 1. When creating a new project, the location and name of the solution no longer have to be set immediately. In previous versions, the project's name and location had to be set before it was created, even if you were just testing something out and planned to delete it right away. For those who create many new projects, that meant either an extra step to delete the project or having a cluttered project directory.

 

Visual Studio now works more like Microsoft Office applications, allowing you to create a project and start coding, and defer the decision of if/where to save it.
2: Peek Definitions
Peek Definitions lets you take a quick peek at a class or method definition without opening the file. You may be accustomed to hitting F12 to go to an object's definition, but now if you hit Alt+F12 instead, you will be able to take a peek at the definition just below its usage. As shown in Figure 2, I had my cursor on "prod.Name" when I hit Alt+F12, bringing up the definition of the Product class right inside my code window.

 

3: Improved Navigation and Search
Along the lines of Peek Definitions, you can also try hitting CTRL+, which will behave differently depending on the position of your cursor. If the cursor is on a blank line, you can just start typing anything and it will begin searching for what you're typing. If the cursor is on some code, that object will be automatically typed into the search box to get you started. See Figure 3 for a look at what that search function looks like. You can then use your arrow keys or mouse to navigate to any of the results of the search.

 

4: CodeLens
CodeLens is a feature that will be available only in Visual Studio Ultimate edition (more on the controversy here), but adds some very useful behavior to the editor. By default, the number of times a property or method is referenced by your code is shown above that property or method. This information can be helpful when changing existing code, since you'll know if the method is called from many places or just a handful. In larger projects, especially ones where you're not familiar with the entire codebase, this can be a big time saver. The number of references is shown in a small font above each property or method on your class, as shown in Figure 4. Clicking on the number of references will show you all of the methods that call it, making it easy to find and navigate to those sections of your code.

 

While not shown here, CodeLens also has some nice Team Foundation Server (TFS) integration. If you're using TFS, it will allow you to see commit history and unit tests targeting the code in question.
5: Scroll Bar Customization
In Visual Studio 2013, the scroll bar can now be customized to give you a better overview of large files. It can be set to show various annotations, such as changes, errors, breakpoints and more. Optionally, it can be set to "map mode," which will give you a zoomed-out representation of your code right on the scroll bar itself. The difference between bar mode (the default) and map mode can be seen in Figure 5.

 

The options screen, as shown in Figure 6, is accessible by going to Tools > Options > Text Editor > All Languages > Scroll Bars.

 

6-8: Minor Tweaks
One of the smaller tweaks to Visual Studio is in the options screen itself. Take a look at Figure 7. Do you recognize that screen? The options screen not being resizable has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time, and I'm elated to know that it's now resizable.

 

In the code window, you can also now easily move lines or blocks of code up or down. Try highlighting an entire line of code, and press ALT+UP or ALT+DOWN. The entire line will be shifted up or down -- another great time saver.
Finally, if you code from multiple machines, the new synchronization features can be of great benefit. If you choose to sign in with your Microsoft account when using Visual Studio, and you sign in from multiple computers, your environment settings -- like keyboard shortcuts and theme -- will be synchronized between instances automatically.
What Are Your Favorite Changes?
Microsoft continues to make Visual Studio the best (in my opinion) development IDE out there. The changes in Visual Studio 2013 really show that Microsoft cares about making the developer experience better with each release, even in relatively insignificant areas like the options screen. Take some time to try out the new features, and hopefully use them to make writing code more enjoyable. Let me know which ones you like best in the comments below.

10 Reasons to use Azure as Cloud Computing.....

Cloud platforms are available from various vendors, including Amazon, IBM, and Google. But Microsoft Azure might be the best choice...

1: Familiarity of Windows

Azure is based on Windows, so you can write applications in the same programming languages you've used for Windows apps: Visual Basic, C++, C#, etc. and their respected tools. This makes it easy for organizations to find developers who already have the skills to create applications for the Azure platform. And because the Azure environment is much like the standard Windows environment.

2: 64-bit Windows VMs

Applications running on Azure run in virtual machines, with each instance of the app running in its own VM on the 64-bit Windows Server 2008 operating system. The hypervisor on which they run is designed specifically for the cloud. You don't have to supply your own VMs or deal with managing and maintaining the OS because apps are developed using Web role instances or worker role instances that run in their own VMs.

3: Azure SDK

Microsoft provides the Windows Azure software development kit (SDK), which includes a version of the Azure environment you can run on your own computer. It's called the Windows Azure Development Fabric, and it includes the Azure agent and storage.

4: Scalability and flexibility

Using Azure, you can easily create applications that run reliably and scale from 10 to 10 thousand or even 10 million users -- without any additional coding. Azure Storage provides scalable, secure, performance-efficient storage services in the cloud.

After you create a Web app, you can specify the number of processors for the application to use. If the application needs to scale up to meet growing demand, it's easy to change the settings to use more processors.

5: Cost benefits and pricing model

The cost of creating, testing, debugging, and distributing Web-based applications goes down because you have to pay only for the computer processing time and storage space you need at a given time.

Windows Azure pricing will be based on consumption, with a per-hour fee that's dependent on the size of the instance for Azure computing services and per-month or per-transaction fees for Azure storage services based on data size.

6: Data center in the cloud

SQL Azure provides organizations with all the benefits of an enterprise-class data center without the hassle, headaches, and cost of maintaining such an entity. You get high availability and reliability with redundant copies of your data and automatic failover. No more worries about backing up data yourself.

It's a relational database model that stores data in the same manner as SQL Server (tables, indexes, views) and thus will be familiar to Windows DBAs, but your SQL Azure Server is spread across multiple physical computers for more flexibility. For information about the differences between SQL Azure and SQL Server, see Similarities and Differences - SQL Azure vs. SQL Server.

7: Support resources

Because Azure uses the same familiar tools and technologies as other Windows platforms, you can take advantage of the well-established support structure within Microsoft and company-provided resources, such as TechNet and MSDN, along with the huge ecosystem of Windows developers outside the company. There will always be someone to turn to when you have questions or problems.

8: Interoperability

With Azure, you can develop hybrid applications that allow your on-premises applications to use cloud services, such as the cloud database and storage services. Communications services work between on-premises applications and the cloud, as well as mobile devices.

Azure supports open standards and Internet protocols, such as HTTP, XML, SOAP, and REST. There are SDKs for Java, PHP, and Ruby, for applications written in those languages, and Azure tools for Eclipse.

9: Security

Knowing that security is one of the biggest concerns for companies considering a move to the cloud, Microsoft designed Azure with security in mind. The .NET Access Control Service provides a way to integrate identities, and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) tokens are used by applications to determine whether a user is allowed access. Microsoft has designed its compliance framework to meet regulatory requirements. For more details, see my article Microsoft Azure: Security in the Cloud.

10: Something for everyone

Windows Azure can benefit hosting providers, ISVs, systems integrators, and custom software developers. Hosting providers can expand their services to areas where they don't have existing infrastructure and add new services without more infrastructure investment. ISVs can use Azure to create, deploy, and manage Web apps and SaaS without large capital expenditures, and they can scale those applications more quickly and cost effectively. Systems integrators can take advantage of Azure's ability to work with existing on-premise infrastructures. Custom software developers can create software solutions for customers who can't afford the costs of in-house development, including hardware costs, and they can deliver their applications to customers as services without building and maintaining an expensive data center.

Reference taken from Deb Shinder's blog.

Say Hello to "Struts" (Part 1)

Struts is a open source framework which make building of the web applications easier based on the java Servlet and JavaServer pages technologies.

It encourages software development following the MVC design pattern. Many web applications are JSP-only or Servlets-only. With JSP and Servlets, Java code is embedded in the HTML code and the Java code calls println methods to generate the HTML code respectively. Both approaches have their advantages and drawbacks; Struts gathers their strengths to get the best of their association.
Struts is based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) design paradigm, it is an implementation of JSP Model 2 Architecture.

Struts is a set of cooperating classes, servlets, and JSP tags that make up a reusable MVC 2(started with) design. This definition implies that Struts is a framework, rather than a library, but Struts also contains an extensive tag library and utility classes that work independently of the framework.

The overview of struts
Client browser
An HTTP request from the client browser creates an event. The Web container will respond with an HTTP response.

Controller
The controller is responsible for intercepting and translating user input into actions to
be performed by the model. The controller is responsible for selecting the next view based on user input and the outcome of model operations.The Controller receives the request from the browser, and makes the decision where to send the request. With Struts, the Controller is a command design pattern implemented as a servlet. The struts-config.xml file configures the Controller.


Business logic
The business logic updates the state of the model and helps control the flow of the application. With Struts this is done with an Action class as a thin wrapper to the actual business logic.

Model 
A model represents an application’s data and contains the logic for accessing and manipulating that data. Any data that is part of the persistent state of the application should reside in the model objects. The business objects update the application state. ActionForm bean represents the Model state at a session or request level, and not at a persistent level. Model services are accessed by the controller for either querying or effecting a change in the model state. The model notifies the view when a state change occurs in the model.The JSP file reads information from the ActionForm bean using JSP tags.

View
The view is responsible for rendering the state of the model. The presentation semantics are encapsulated within the view, therefore model data can be adapted for several different kinds of clients.The view modifies itself when a change in the model is communicated to the view. A view forwards user input to the controller.The view is simply a JSP file. There is no flow logic, no business logic, and no model information -- just tags. Tags are one of the things that make Struts unique compared to other frameworks like Velocity.

Six Things That Will Surprise You About .NET 4.0 - by Michael Kennedy

In this article, we will explore some of the new features of the .NET 4.0 as well as Visual Studio 2010. Some of these features are well-known, but others haven't gotten the press that they deserve. I've combed through .NET 4 to pull out the cool features that maybe didn’t get all the press – but should have. Read on and be pleasantly surprised!

[Note: Everything discussed below is based on .NET 4.0 and VS 2010 Beta 2]

 

#1 Visual Studio 2010                                                 

 

You may have already known...

 

code-oriented features are a major focus of the improvements for VS 2010. For example, one style of development where developers sketch out a scenario in code involving a set of classes before they are completely written was painful in VS 2008 (e.g. TDD). 

 

In this style of working, intellisense did all it could to get in your way and the IDE offered little to help move you forward. This gap was filled by 3rd party tools, most notably Resharper (http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/).

 

In VS 2010, this capability will be built into the IDE -- can you say "CTRL-." anyone? See the sequence below for details.

But did you know...

that VS 2010 was rewritten in WPF and as part of that rewrite now has true multi-monitor support?

Yes, previously you could drag a build output window to a second monitor or the properties window to the side. But the part you really needed to split up, the code and designers, were solidly grounded in the one IDE window. 

 

Not in 2010, you can pull these free and put them on your second, or third monitors. This aids both when working on UIs (you can see the designer and code-behind) as well as when doing TDD (you can see the test code and production code side-by-side).

#2 ASP.NET                                                          

 

You may have already known...

 

ASP.NET MVC is now integrated into VS 2010 and ships as part of .NET 4.0. In case you haven't heard of it, ASP.NET MVC is an alternative to the WebForms model that has been the backbone of ASP.NET for so many years. You can build well-factored, testable, and clean web applications more easily in MVC.

 

But did you know...

 

for the very first time an true open source will become and integral and supported part of Visual Studio and .NET? JQuery will now be part of all web projects created by VS 2010 by default. That does for ASP.NET WebForms, not just MVC projects. In fact, you can even open a support ticket with Microsoft concerning JQuery. You can read Scott Guthrie's original announcement for more details here

#3 WF 4.0                                                

 

You may have already known...

 

that Windows Workflow 4 has been completely rewritten for .NET 4.0. It's not even backwards compatible with .NET 3.5's version of WF. Basically WF 3 was a good try, but suffered from a couple of major problems that could not be overcome by simply refactoring the library.

 

But did you know...

 

WF 4 has a nice GUI workflow building designer that is part of the VS 2010 tools and moreover that designer is rehostable in your own Windows Forms or WPF applications. 

 

Why might you do this? Consider an application where there is a scriptable aspect that is for non-developer types of users. Instead of giving them a scripting language such as Python, you can build WF activities and provide them with the designer to wire them together. This would give your application essentially a visual programmability.

#4 Base-Class Libraries                                         

You may have already known...

.NET 4.0 has threading constructs like Parallel.For which are designed for leveraging parallelism and multi-core hardware in CPU-bound situations. These are a perfect compliment to things like the ThreadPool class which are indented for parallelism when latency in external systems (databases, web services, file IO, etc) is the bottleneck.

But did you know...

there will be a new collection namespace called System.Collections.Concurrent?

 

Here you will find lock-free, thread-safe collections such as ConcurrentQueue<T>. As we move from single core systems, to multi-core systems, and then into many-core systems (say 64 cores) these types of lock free objects will become increasingly important.
 

#5 WPF                                             

 

You may have already known...

 

that the WPF and Silverlight designers in VS 2010 are greatly improved. You now have some features available that were only available in Expression Blend previously (e.g. data-binding)
 

But did you know...

 

the text rendering stack in WPF 4 has been completely rewritten.

 

Now text looks as clear in WPF as it does in GDI+ with ClearType enabled. This includes a host of edge cases, such as when the text is re-rendered via a VisualBrush, is used in animations, or even 3D text. Once again Scott Guthrie comes through with a great WPF 4 writeup on his blog.

#6 CLR and Base-Class Libraries             

 

You may have already known...

 

that .NET 4 ships with an entirely new runtime. There have been a number releases of .NET lately (2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 3.5 SP1) but all of these versions of .NET have run on the 2.0 runtime. For the first time since 2005, .NET 4 we'll have a completely updated runtime with new GC modes, side-by-side in-process execution of the 2.0 and 4.0 runtime, the loosening of COM interop rules with the No PIA feature (no Primary Interop Assemblies required).

 

But did you know...

 

there are new numerical types including BigInteger which supports arbitrarily big integers and ComplexNumber for modeling systems with advanced mathematical formulas which involve the complex number system.

You'll have to look around a bit to find these types however as they are not referenced by default. They are in the new System.Numerics library.

Summary                   

 

.NET 4 is going to be an exciting release with a some very polished libraries and tools. This article just touched on a few of them. 

 

1. Visual Studio 2010 Multi-monitor Support
2. JQuery is now part of ASP.NET
3. WF 4 Has a Rehostable Designer
4. BCL has New Thread-Safe Collections
5. WPF has Real Text Support
6. CLR and BCL has new Numerical Types

25 Years of Predictions:Our Greatest Hits

25 Years of Predictions:Our Greatest Hits

Predicting the future isn't easy. Sometimes PC World has been right on the money. At other times, we've missed it by a mile. Here are three predictions we made that were eerily prescient--and three where we may have been a bit too optimistic.

1983 What we said: "The mouse will bask in the computer world limelight... Like the joystick before it, though, the mouse will fade someday into familiarity."

We hit that one out of the park. Mice are so commonplace that they're practically disposable.

1984 What we said: "Microsoft Windows should have a lasting effect on the entire personal computer industry."

"Lasting" was an understatement. Windows has now amassed for Microsoft total revenues in the tens of billions of dollars and is so ubiquitous and influential that it has been almost perpetually embroiled in one lawsuit or another, usually involving charges of monopoly or of trademark and patent infringements.

1988 What we said:"In the future you'll have this little box containing all your files and programs... It's very likely that eventually people will always carry their data with them."

For most people, that little box is now also their MP3 player or cell phone.

And Biggest Misses

1987 What we said: "When you walk into an office in 1998, the PC will sense your presence, switch itself on, and promptly deliver your overnight e-mail, sorted in order of importance."

When we arrive in our office, the computer ignores us, slowly delivers the overnight e-mail, and puts all the spam on top.

1994 What we said: "Within five years... batteries that last a year, like watch batteries today, will power [PDAs]."

Perhaps our biggest whiff of all time. Not only do these superbatteries not exist (nor are they even remotely in sight), but PDAs are pretty much dead too.

2000 What we said: We wrote about future "computers that pay attention to you, sensing where you are, what you're doing, and even what your vital signs are... Products incorporating this kind of technology...could hit the market within a year."

While many devices now feature location-sensing hardware, such a PC has yet to come to pass. And frankly, we'd be glad to be wrong about this one.

Wireless Power Transmission - New Technology

Wireless Power Transmission

Wireless power transmission has been a dream since the days when Nikola Tesla imagined a world studded with enormous Tesla coils. But aside from advances in recharging electric toothbrushes, wireless power has so far failed to make significant inroads into consumer-level gear.

What is it? This summer, Intel researchers demonstrated a method--based on MIT research--for throwing electricity a distance of a few feet, without wires and without any dangers to bystanders (well, none that they know about yet). Intel calls the technology a "wireless resonant energy link," and it works by sending a specific, 10-MHz signal through a coil of wire; a similar, nearby coil of wire resonates in tune with the frequency, causing electrons to flow through that coil too. Though the design is primitive, it can light up a 60-watt bulb with 70 percent efficiency.

When is it coming? Numerous obstacles remain, the first of which is that the Intel project uses alternating current. To charge gadgets, we'd have to see a direct-current version, and the size of the apparatus would have to be considerably smaller. Numerous regulatory hurdles would likely have to be cleared in commercializing such a system, and it would have to be thoroughly vetted for safety concerns.

Assuming those all go reasonably well, such receiving circuitry could be integrated into the back of your laptop screen in roughly the next six to eight years. It would then be a simple matter for your local airport or even Starbucks to embed the companion power transmitters right into the walls so you can get a quick charge without ever opening up your laptop bag.

32-Core CPUs From Intel and AMD

32-Core CPUs From Intel and AMD

8-core Intel and AMD CPUs are about to make their way onto desktop PCs everywhere. Next stop: 16 cores.

8-core Intel and AMD CPUs are about to make their way onto desktop PCs everywhere. Next stop: 16 cores.

If your CPU has only a single core, it's officially a dinosaur. In fact,quad-core computing is now commonplace; you can even get laptop computers with four cores today. But we're really just at the beginning of the core wars: Leadership in the CPU market will soon be decided by who has the most cores, not who has the fastest clock speed.

What is it? With the gigahertz race largely abandoned, both AMDand Intel are trying to pack more cores onto a die in order to continue to improve processing power and aid with multitasking operations. Miniaturizing chips further will be key to fitting these cores and other components into a limited space. Intel will roll out 32-nanometer processors (down from today's 45nm chips) in 2009.

When is it coming? Intel has been very good about sticking to its road map. A six-core CPU based on the Itanium design should be out imminently, when Intel then shifts focus to a brand-new architecture called Nehalem, to be marketed as Core i7. Core i7 will feature up to eight cores, with eight-core systems available in 2009 or 2010. (And an eight-core AMD project called Montreal is reportedly on tap for 2009.)

After that, the timeline gets fuzzy. Intel reportedly canceled a 32-core project called Keifer, slated for 2010, possibly because of its complexity (the company won't confirm this, though). That many cores requires a new way of dealing with memory; apparently you can't have 32 brains pulling out of one central pool of RAM. But we still expect cores to proliferate when the kinks are ironed out: 16 cores by 2011 or 2012 is plausible (when transistors are predicted to drop again in size to 22nm), with 32 cores by 2013 or 2014 easily within reach. Intel says "hundreds" of cores may come even farther down the line.

An Introduction to Firewalls

Introduction

Firewalls are computer security systems that protect your office/home PCs or your network from intruders, hackers & malicious code. Firewalls protect you from offensive software that may come to reside on your systems or from prying hackers. In a day and age when online security concerns are the top priority of the computer users, Firewalls provide you with the necessary safety and protection.

What exactly are firewalls?

Firewalls are software programs or hardware devices that filter the traffic that flows into you PC or your network through a internet connection. They sift through the data flow & block that which they deem (based on how & for what you have tuned the firewall) harmful to your network or computer system.

When connected to the internet, even a standalone PC or a network of interconnected computers make easy targets for malicious software & unscrupulous hackers. A firewall can offer the security that makes you less vulnerable and also protect your data from being compromised or your computers being taken hostage.

How do they work?

Firewalls are setup at every connection to the Internet, therefore subjecting all data flow to careful monitoring. Firewalls can also be tuned to follow "rules". These Rules are simply security rules that can be set up by yourself or by the network administrators to allow traffic to their web servers, FTP servers, Telnet servers, thereby giving the computer owners/administrators immense control over the traffic that flows in & out of their systems or networks.

Rules will decide who can connect to the internet, what kind of connections can be made, which or what kind of files can be transmitted in out. Basically all traffic in & out can be watched and controlled thus giving the firewall installer a high level of security & protection.

Firewall logic

Firewalls use 3 types of filtering mechanisms:

• Packet filtering or packet purity
  
  Data flow consists of packets of information and firewalls analyze these packets to sniff out offensive or unwanted packets depending on what you have defined as unwanted packets.
   
• Proxy
  
  Firewalls in this case assume the role of a recipient & in turn sends it to the node that has requested the information & vice versa.
   
• Inspection
  
  In this case Firewalls instead of sifting through all of the information in the packets, mark key features in all outgoing requests & check for the same matching characteristics in the inflow to decide if it relevant information that is coming through.
   

Firewall Rules

Firewalls rules can be customized as per your needs, requirements & security threat levels. You can create or disable firewall filter rules based on such conditions as:

• IP Addresses
  
  Blocking off a certain IP address or a range of IP addresses, which you think are predatory. What is my IP address?  Where is an IP address located?
   
• Domain names
  
  You can only allow certain specific domain names to access your systems/servers or allow access to only some specified types of domain names or domain name extension like .edu or .mil.
   
• Protocols
  
  A firewall can decide which of the systems can allow or have access to common protocols like IP, SMTP, FTP, UDP,ICMP,Telnet or SNMP.
   
• Ports
  
  Blocking or disabling ports of servers that are connected to the internet will help maintain the kind of data flow you want to see it used for & also close down possible entry points for hackers or malignant software.
   
• Keywords
  
  Firewalls also can sift through the data flow for a match of the keywords or phrases to block out offensive or unwanted data from flowing in.
   

Types of Firewall

• Software firewalls
  
  New generation Operating systems come with built in firewalls or you can buy a firewall software for the computer that accesses the internet or acts as the gateway to your home network.
   
• Hardware firewalls
  
  Hardware firewalls are usually routers with a built in Ethernet card and hub. Your computer or computers on your network connect to this router & access the web.
   

Summary

Firewalls are a must have for any kind of computer usage that go online. They protect you from all kinds of abuse & unauthorised access like trojans that allow taking control of your computers by remote logins or backdoors, virus or use your resources to launch DOS attacks.

Firewalls are worth installing. Be it a basic standalone system, a home network or a office network, all face varying levels of risks & Firewalls do a good job in mitigating these risks. Tune the firewall for your requirements & security levels and you have one reason less to worry.

Some of the firewall products that you may want to check out are:

• McAfee Internet Security
• Microsoft Windows Firewall
• Norton Personal Firewall
• Trend Micro PC-cillin
• ZoneAlarm Security Suit

10-Free-Text-Editors-for-Programmers

You can make writing code as complicated as you want, but at the end of the day, all you really need is your favorite, trusty text editor. You can use a simple one like Microsoft’s Notepad, but oftentimes it’s helpful to have a text editor that has syntax highlighting/coloring, support for multiple languages, a robust find and replace feature, and other features and options that make writing code just a tad bit easier. If you’re in search of a good, free text editor – you’ve come to the right place. This article reviews 10 leading text editors that are best suited for developers.

10-Free-Text-Editors-for-Programmers

1. Notepad++ (Windows)
It has an auto-completion feature (for most supported languages) that guesses what you’re trying to write, a tabbed interface which is great for working with multiple files without cluttering your task bar, a powerful RegEx find-and-replace feature, code folding, support for a large array of languages (even Assembler!) and much more.
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
2. TextWrangler (Mac)
TextWrangler is a multi-purpose text editor for the Mac OS. It is a programmer-friendly text editor and Unix/Server Admin text editor. It also has a function browser so that you can quickly find and jump to the function you’re looking for (very helpful for those really long files).
http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/
3. Gedit (Linux)
Gedit is the official text editor of the GNOME desktop. Unlike Microsoft’s built-in text editor (Notepad), gedit is a more feature-packed text editor geared towards usage for programming and mark-up.
http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/
4. GNU Emacs (Windows, Mac, Linux)
GNU Emacs (more commonly referred to simply as Emacs) is a cross-platform, extendible text editor geared towards programmers. It has a file-comparison feature (M-x ediff) that highlights differences between two files (useful for figuring out changes in a file made by coders who don’t document/comment their revisions).
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
5. Crimson Editor (Windows)
Crimson Editor is a light-weight text editor for Windows that supports many languages. It has a “Macros” features which lets you record a sequence of tasks so that you can reuse the sequence with a click of a button.
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
6. SciTE (Windows, Linux)
SciTE, written on top of the open source Scintilla code-editing component, is a speedy text editor aimed for use in source code editing. It can be contained on portable storage drives (USB flash drives) so that you can conveniently carry it around and use it on any computer without having to install it. SciTE is a compatible with Windows and Linux operating systems and has been tested by the developer on Windows XP and on Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10.
http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
7. Komodo Edit (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Komodo Edit is a freeware, cross-platform text editor created by ActiveState. It is a simple text editor based on the popular integrated development environment – Komodo IDE. It has a convenient and flexible Project Manager feature to help you organize and keep track of your project files.
http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit
8. jEdit (Windows, Mac, Linux)
jEdit is a text editor that specifically caters to programmers. It’s written in Java and runs on any operating system that supports it. You can download a ton of plugins (check out the Plugins Central on jEdit’s website) to extend its built-in features.

http://www.jedit.org/
9. Vim (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Vim is free and open source software and is released under a license that includes some charityware clauses, encouraging users who enjoy the software to consider donating to children in Uganda. The license is compatible with the GNU General Public License. Although Vim was originally released for the Amiga, Vim has since been developed to be cross-platform, supporting many other platforms.

http://www.vim.org/
10. Textpad (Windows)
Not as pretty as some but that might be why it can still handle working with text files in the 100′s of MB. Some of its features include: JAVA compiler built in, record macros, clipboard history, Regex search and replace, compare files, split windows and Bookmarks.
http://www.textpad.com/
There are many different editors available and most are very powerful. You will want to find an editor you are comfortable using and that contains the navigation, highlighting and other features you may want to make you more productive while you code.

Oracle Application Framework ( ORACLE ADF)

Oracle ADF – Making Java EE Development Simpler

Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) is an innovative, yet mature Java EE development framework available from Oracle and directly supported and enabled by the award winning development environment, Oracle JDeveloper 11g.

Oracle ADF simplifies Java EE development by minimizing the need to write code that implements the application’s infrastructure allowing the developers to focus on the features of the actual application. Oracle ADF provides these infrastructure implementations as part of the framework. To recognize a set of runtime services is not enough, Oracle ADF is also focused on the development experience to provide a visual and declarative approach to Java EE development through the Oracle JDeveloper 11g development tool.

Oracle ADF implements the Model-View-Controller design pattern and offers an integrated solution that covers all the layers of this architecture with solution to such areas as: Object/Relational mapping, data persistence, reusable controller layer, rich Web user interface framework, data binding to UI, security and customization. Extending beyond the core Web based MVC approach, ADF also integrates with the Oracle SOA and WebCenter Portal frameworks simplifying the creation of complete composite applications.

For example, Oracle ADF makes it easy to develop agile applications that expose data as services by coupling a service interface to the built-in business services in ADF. This separation of business service implementation details is performed in Oracle ADF via metadata.  Use of this metadata-driven architecture enables application developers to focus on the business logic and user experience, rather than the details of how services are accessed.

Creating the user experience is as simple as dragging-and-dropping the desired business services onto a visual page designer and indicating what type of component should represent that data. In the example illustrated, we are able to take a database table exposed as a business service, and request JDeveloper to render the data as a table simply by dragging-and-dropping the control on the page and responding to the automatic popup by indicating a table as the desired rendering component. Oracle ADF takes care of the rest.

Oracle ADF stores the implementation details of these services in metadata in the ADF Model layer. This enables developers to exchange services without modifying the user interface, making the application extremely agile. Additionally, the developer creating the user interface does not need to bother with business service access details. Instead they can focus on developing the application interface and interaction logic.

THE ORACLE ADF ARCHITECTURE

Oracle ADF is based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. An MVC application is separated into: 1) a model layer that handles interaction with data-sources and runs the

business logic, 2) a view layer that handles the application user interface, and 3) a controller that manages the application flow and acts as the interface between the Model and the View layers.

Separating applications into these three layers simplifies maintenance and reuse of components across applications. The independence of each layer from the others results in a loosely coupled, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Oracle ADF implements MVC and further separates the model layer from the business services

to enable service-oriented development of applications. The Oracle ADF architecture is based on four layers:

·  The Business Services layer - provides access to data from various sources and handles business logic.

·  The Model layer - provides an abstraction layer on top of the Business Services layer, enabling the View and Controller layers to work with different implementations of Business Services in a consistent way.

·  The Controller layer - provides a mechanism to control the flow of the Web application.

·  The View layer - provides the user interface of the application.

  Oracle ADF Architecture

Oracle ADF lets developers choose the technology they prefer to use when implementing each of the layers. The diagram above shows the various options available for developers when building Oracle ADF applications. The glue that integrates the various components of Java EE applications and makes development so flexible is the Oracle ADF model layer. EJB, Web Services, JavaBeans, JPA/EclipseLink/TopLink objects and many others can all be used as Business Services for the Oracle ADF Model.  View layers can include Web based interfaces implemented with JSF, Desktop Swing applications and MS Office front ends, as well as interfaces for mobile devices.

The Business Services Layer

The Business Services layer manages interaction with a data persistence layer. It provides such services as data persistence, object/relational mapping, transaction management, and business logic execution.

The Business Services layer in Oracle ADF can be implemented in any of the following options: As simple Java classes, EJB, Web services, JPA objects, and Oracle ADF Business Components. In addition, data can be consumed directly from files (XML or CSV) as well as REST.

The Controller Layer

The controller layer manages the applications flow and handles user input. For example, when you click a Search button on a page, the controller determines what action to perform (do a search) and where to navigate to (the results page).

There are two controller options for web-based applications in JDeveloper: the standard JSF controller or the ADF Controller which extends the JSF controller functionality. Whichever controller you use, you will typically design your application flow by laying out pages and navigation rules on a diagram.

With the ADF controller you can break your application's flow into smaller, reusable task flows; include non-visual components such as method calls and decision points in your flow; and create "page fragment" flows that run inside a region of a single containing page. This approach encourages maximum reusability for user interface fragments and simplified integration into portals and mashup applications.

The View Layer

The View layer represents the user interface of the application.

Oracle ADF support multi-channel access to your business services allowing you to reuse your business services and access them from a Web client, a client-server swing desktop based application, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, or a mobile devices such as a smart-phone.

For Web based interface Oracle ADF offers a rich set of over a 150 Ajax enabled JSF

components that simplified the creation of dynamic and appealing user interfaces.

The Model Layer

The model layer connects the business services to the objects that use them in the other layers. Oracle ADF provides a model layer implementation that sits on top of business services, providing a single interface that can be used to access any type of business service. The model layer consists of two components, data controls and data bindings, which utilize metadata files to define the interface. Data controls abstract the business service implementation details from

clients. Data bindings expose data control methods and attributes to UI components, providing a clean separation of the view and model. Due to the metadata architecture of the model layer, developers get the same development experience when binding any type of Business Service layer implementation to the View and Controller layers.

Productivity with Choice

Developers can choose different technologies to implement each of Oracle ADF‘s layers, and still get the same productive development experience. For example, the same gestures and methods would be used to create an ADF Swing application based on ADF Business Components as would be used to create a ADF Faces application based on Enterprise JavaBeans. In addition to the choice of technologies implemented, developers can choose their

development style (declarative, visual, or by coding), allowing developers with different skills and

ways of working to cooperate on the same project.

Declarative Customization and Personalization

A unique aspect of Oracle ADF is the ability to tailor the resulting application to specific user requirements. A layer called MDS – MetaData Services – allows developers to customize XML definitions that Oracle ADF relies on and use different versions for different users.

The first level of customization is enabled for end users at runtime – users can personalize the interface of their application - for example re-order fields in a table, expand specific accordions etc – and MDS will persist those changes for them.

The second level of customization, called seeded customization, allows developers to implement modifications in business rules, page flows, page layouts and other items that ADF persist in XML format. These modifications will be applied at runtime based on the user that logs into the application. This layered approach to customization allows an organization to use one base application to serve different customer needs.

Integrated Security

Oracle ADF comes with built in security implementation across the layers. Developers can

define users and roles and assign various authorizations to them. Privileges can be assigned at the business service layer, the controller layer or the UI layer. This integrated security framework across the layers eliminate the need to replicate security mechanisms at each layer.

For example, if a field in a business service is defined as non-updateable to some users, the UI layer will automatically switch the display of this field to be in read only mode in all screens without the developer needing to code this check at the UI layer.

ORACLE ADF BENEFITS

Visual and Declarative Java EE Development

A critical aspect of making a development framework useful is having a development tool that simplifies the creation of applications using this framework.

Oracle offers visual and declarative tools for each layer of Oracle ADF. These tools, which are integrated into the JDeveloper IDE, benefit Java developers even if they don’t use the runtime features of Oracle ADF.

Business Services Development

Oracle JDeveloper includes a variety of ways to construct business services including: EJB/JPA, web services, simple Java objects, and ADF BC, among others. “Productivity with Choice” is a cornerstone to this approach. When generating these, it is possible to make use of a wizard- driven approach to generate Business Services that provide Java interfaces to these tables. With simply a right-click these interfaces can then be exposed as web services, including SDO based web services. Additionally, keeping with the theme of being visual and declarative, it is also possible to accomplish the same thing via visual modeling to generate these interfaces.

Oracle ADF Business Components is a framework focused on creating objects, which implement the Business Services layer on top of a data source, in a more declarative way. It provides out-of-the-box services such as transaction management, resource pooling, locking, declarative validation rules, translation, and object-relational mapping. Oracle ADF BC should feel familiar to developers with a background in 4gl declarative database driven development, offering such features as defining java objects based on SQL, declarative definition of validation rules, and pre-defined events where code can be injected into the business service life cycle. ADF BC development is done through declarative dialogs and property inspectors. With built-in implementation of common JAVA EE design patterns in the framework, the performance and scalability of the application is assured.

User Interface Development

Visual and declarative development features of the View and Controller layers of an application are plentiful in Oracle JDeveloper:

·  ADF Faces - a large set of over a 150 UI components built on top of the standard JSF APIs that leverage the latest technologies — including partial page rendering and Ajax — to provide a rich, interactive user interface.

·  A page flow modeler for the ADF controller and the standard JSF framework page flow, providing visual page flow modeling using simple drag and drop of components onto a diagram.

·  A visual editor for JSP, JSF, HTML, Swing, and Wireless based user interfaces, allowing

WYSIWYG development for all types of components.

·  Declarative development tools for adding components to the user interface, including the creation of declarative components, a property inspector, extensible component palette, and data control palette.

·  Reusability features – several features for maximizing reusability, including the creation of task flows, ADF Libraries, and declarative components.

Visual JSF development

The visual and declarative development tools are synchronized in the JDeveloper IDE so that the visual editor, property inspector, and modelers are synchronized with the source code at all times. Thus, developers can choose their development style – drag and drop, declaratively define properties, or edit source code directly.

Binding Business Services Components to the User Interface

Oracle JDeveloper provides a very easy way to bind components from the Business Services layer to your Controller and View layers using an innovative binding layer approach. The Data Control Palette provides a view into the Business Services layer. Developers can simply drag-and-

drop data objects and bind them to their user interface implementation. The same mechanism enables an easy binding of controller actions to methods defined in the Business Services layer. All using purely visual and declarative gestures.

Benefits of Oracle ADF Over Other Frameworks

The key characteristics of Oracle ADF that makes it unique among other Java EE frameworks are:

End-to-End Solution – Oracle ADF doesn’t focus on just one layer of the Java EE

architecture. ADF provides an integrated and complete solution for every Java EE layer from the view layer and data-bindings, through the business services and data access; as well as support for every development life-cycle phase from inception through support.

Development Environment – Many of the other Java EE frameworks lack strong integrated support by development tools. Oracle JDeveloper provides visual aids and a declarative approach to minimize the need to write framework code, making it a perfect tool for building Oracle ADF- based applications. This declarative development approach also reduces the learning curve for developers familiar with 4GL-style tools. Developers who wish to use another IDE, such as Eclipse, are able to do so with built-in features provided in Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse packaging and relying on ADF’s support for the Java EE standards.

Platform Independence – Other frameworks lock developers into a specific software vendor. The Oracle ADF runtime, however, can be installed on various Java EE compliant application servers and business services can connect to any SQL-92 compliant database.

Technology Choice – Developers have preferences for the way they implement different layers of an application. Oracle ADF supports multiple technologies for each of the layers of the application and doesn’t enforce a specific technology or a specific development style on the developer.

Technology Commitment - It is important to note that Oracle ADF is the technology choice for the Oracle next generation set of enterprise applications – Oracle Fusion Applications - and is in continuous use for internal development purposes. The product is used to develop Portal applications, wireless applications, and web applications, and therefore provides a committed, supported, and consistent technology stack.

Metadata-Driven – All layers of the Oracle ADF framework offer declarative options for development, configured from XML metadata, while accommodating custom coding wherever necessary. You can choose to use all or part of the framework in the applications you build, making the application components much more reusable and flexible. The use of metadata also enables rules for data bound fields to be specified at the model layer. Labels, validation, and tooltip properties can be specified in the metadata for ADF data bindings - those properties are utilized independent of the user interface implementation.

Declarative Customization – Oracle ADF provides a unique solution that allows an organization to use a single base application and customize it to fit the requirements of different users. Oracle ADF works in conjunction with a MetaData Services (MDS) layer that provides for application customization via two different implementation layers: The first, would be “seeded customization” which refers to an application wide customization that would be in effect for anyone accessing the application for a particular group. The second is “user customization” often referred to as “personalization” in which the end user designates customizations to their personal experience that are then persisted via the MDS repository.

Enhanced Reusability – JDeveloper + ADF provides support for superior reusability features including: JSF templating, reusable task flows, task flow templating, reusable business services, ADF libraries, JSF fragment based regions, and much, much more.

Source availability - Oracle provides the source code for the ADF framework to customers with a support license. Having the source available can help developers understand the underlying mechanisms of the framework and debug problems in their applications.

Support - Oracle ADF is an official Oracle product and as such is serviced by the Oracle

Support organization. This provides around the clock support from an established organization.

Training - Oracle University offers regular instructor lead courses on Oracle ADF and

JDeveloper.

CONCLUSION

Oracle ADF makes Java EE development simpler by providing out of the box implementation of design patterns and infrastructure code. ADF provides a choice of development approach, technologies used, and deployment platform. Combining the advanced architecture of Oracle ADF with the visual development environment of Oracle JDeveloper 11g provides a perfect solution for both novice and experienced developers looking to be more productive when developing Java applications.