Everyone in IT understands that there are disasters and then there are disasters. Regardless of the scale of any interruption in operations, disaster recovery plans generally comprise details describing how IT will accomplish the two most important tasks they will face in the event of a disaster: business continuity contingencies and the recovery of lost data. While being “down” and “disconnected” from the rest of the world can be financially devastating, losing the data upon which the business relies is equivalent to a monarch losing the crown jewels. Now that’s a disaster, no matter what the underlying cause.

Before Web 2.0 made its way onto the corporate stage, a backup – or two – kept us convinced that, should we lose data for some reason, we could always get it back and, more important, get it back in such a state that we’d have lost nothing more than time. With Web 2.0, however, that task has become a bit trickier. There’s more data, more often, that needs to be backed up and replicated, and only so many hours in the day (the dreaded maintenance window) in which we can accomplish this important task.

Read more here…f5.com

This document examines the architecture behind the early access version of the Adventure Builder Sample Application, which focuses on using the latest Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE™) 1.4 technologies. For recommendations and guidelines on architecting and designing enterprise applications, see Designing Enterprise Applications With the J2EE Platform, Second Edition. For recommendations and guidelines on architecting and designing Web services, see Designing Web Services with the J2EE Platform.

The Adventure Builder application will consist of four application modules: a Web customer application, and three applications for fulfilling an order. This document covers only the Web application. It illustrates how Web-only developers can benefit from the J2EE technologies and demonstrates Web tier design strategies and patterns.

One interesting point to note is that the Web customer application is a Web-only application and does not have an Enterprise JavaBeans tier (EJB™ tier). We chose a Web-centric design primarily so that we could provide guidelines for applications that do not have an EJB tier. Using the J2EE platform, a Web application can be designed in two ways: EJB-centric or Web-centric. The Java Pet Store Application illustrates how to write a Web application in an EJB-centric manner. It is an MVC-based application that makes a heavy use of local enterprise beans to implement the model and the controller. The Adventure Builder application illustrates the other option: how to write a Web application in a Web-centric manner. EJB technology is a key technology in the J2EE platform, but not all J2EE applications need to use it. A Web-only application is a valid J2EE application as well. Also note that other applications in the Adventure Builder enterprise, such as the order fulfillment application, follow an EJB-centric design and illustrate guidelines for applications using EJB technology.

Learn more: java.sun.com

“Attacks will become more sophisticated by combining several services in order to heighten infection ratios and decrease the detection rate, while providing more robust and scalable attack frameworks,” Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer, Finjan, said in a news release. “The focus will be on trojan technology as it enables maximum flexibility in terms of command and control. This adds another potentially malicious element to the ‘legitimate’ web traffic that needs to be examined by security solutions.”

In short, before installing the app or widget that your friend sent you, confirm if it came from them. If it didn’t, kindly delete it immediately. If it did come from them, research on the app or widget from previous users.

Source

For quite some time now, i am using SE’s P1i. Performance wise, I am content with it’s QWERTY keypad and I’d say going back to a mobile phone that doesn’t have a QWERTY keypad is something I wont do. But ever since my brother brought an iPhone and spent a lot of time to play with it, my views shifted.

When i first tried it, it really took me quite some time to used to it. I made plenty of errors with the iPhone and is largely due to its predictive text input. The touchscreen pad is very small and it is very hard to hit it compared to the physical keypad of my P1i. The good thing about it though is you can fix it with just a software upgrade versus replacing hardware for the physical keypad.

The virtual keyboards advantage is that it disappears when you don’t need it, thus giving you more leeway to use iPhone screen. In most cases, if it conks out, upgrading the software always fixes the bugs.

On the other hand, physical keypad’s advantage is its perceptive feedback. You can feel the keys even without looking. Of course, its very useful when you are driving. You can actually type and send a message without looking at my P1i and that is something I can’t do with the iPhone.

I guess everyone agrees with me that the iPhone needs improvement especially wioth its tochscreen keypad. In hindsight, I think that virtual keys are the way of the future but somehow an iPhone with real keypads could be interesting too.

Interested in a quick checklist for testing a web application? The following 10 steps cover the most critical items that I have found important in making sure a web application is ready to be deployed. Depending on size, complexity, and corporate policies, modify the following steps to meet your specific testing needs.

Step 1 – Objectives
Make sure to establish your testing objectives up front and make sure they are measurable. It will make your life a lot easier by having written objectives that your whole team can understand and rally around. In addition to documenting your objectives, make sure your objectives are prioritized. Ask yourself questions like “What is most important: minimal defects or time-to-market?”

Here are two examples of how to determine priorities:

If you are building a medical web application that will assist in diagnosing illnesses, and someone could potentially die based on how correctly the application functions, you may want to make testing the correctness of the business functionality a higher priority than testing for navigational consistency throughout the application.

If you are testing an application that will be used to solicit external funding, you may want to put testing the aspects of the application that impact the visual appeal as the highest testing priority.

Your web application doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to meet your intended customer’s requirements and expectations.

Learn more: adminitrack.com

Security for e-commerce Web
By: MJ

It is very important to check whether the site you are entering is not a scam where you lose your assets. You have to make sure that you have made the necessary and practical security systems in your computer. If you are still at a loos on how to do so, then please refer to the following suggestions:

• Check the security of the server hosting the site
• download the appropriate Security Configuration Guide from the U.S. National Security Agency Web site
• use the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Security Configuration Checklists Repository for instructions and procedures
• Benchmark and Scoring Tools from the Center for Internet Security (CIS) to evaluate an e-commerce Web infrastructure and compare its level of security against minimum due-care security benchmarks

By: MJ

As time passes, laptop computers have become more recognized than the normal computers. They are portable and can be brought anywhere. Aside from Mac laptops and Asus, there is now another competitor in the business. Asus, which originally offered small and affordable laptops is now faced with The Neo Explore. Though it seems that the new gadget had won over the consumers because of its lower price, there are still glitches that the company had overlooked.

To be able to sell their product for a cheaper price, they have used Linux instead of Microsoft. Though the company aimed the younger generation to use this gadget, they have neglected to see through the possibility that they may become shocked with the unfamiliar system.