Microsoft confirms 'nasty' Windows zero-day bug
Microsoft on Friday warned that attackers are exploiting a critical unpatched Windows vulnerability using infected USB flash drives.
The bug admission is the first that affects Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) since Microsoft retired the edition from support , researchers said. When Microsoft does fix the flaw, it will not be providing a patch for machines still running XP SP2.
Websense WSGA: Securing your Web and Data With One Console: View now
In a security advisory , Microsoft MCTS Training confirmed what other researchers had been saying for almost a month: Hackers have been exploiting a bug in Windows "shortcut" files, the placeholders typically dropped on the desktop or into the Start menu to represent links to actual files or programs.
"In the wild, this vulnerability has been found operating in conjunction with the Stuxnet malware," Dave Forstrom, a director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, said in a post Friday to a company blog . Stuxnet is a clan of malware that includes a Trojan horse that downloads further attack code, including a rootkit that hides evidence of the attack.
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Forstrom characterized the threat as "limited, targeted attacks," but the Microsoft group responsible for crafting antivirus signatures said it had tracked 6,000 attempts to infect Windows PCs as of July 15.
On Friday, Siemens alerted customers of its Simatic WinCC management software that attacks using the Windows vulnerability were targeting computers used to manage large-scale industrial control systems used by major manufacturing and utility companies.
The vulnerability was first mentioned on June 17 in an alert issued by VirusBlokAda , a little-known security firm based in Belarus. Other security organizations, including U.K.-based Sophos and SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center , picked up on the threat Friday. Security blogger Brian Krebs , formerly with the Washington Post, reported on it Thursday.
According to Microsoft, Windows fails to correctly parse shortcut files, identified by the ".lnk" extension. The flaw has been exploited most frequently using USB flash drives. By crafting a malicious .lnk file, hackers can hijack a Windows PC with little user interaction: All that's necessary is that the user views the contents of the USB drive with a file manager like Windows Explorer.
Chester Wisniewski, a senior security advisory with Sophos, called the threat "nasty," and said his tests showed that the exploit works even when AutoRun and AutoPlay -- two functions that have previously been used by attackers to commandeer PCs using infected flash drives -- are disabled. The rootkit also bypasses all security mechanisms in Windows, including the User Account Control (UAC) prompts in Vista and Windows 7 , said Wisniewski in a blog entry Friday.
Attacks can also be launched without using USB drives, Microsoft MCITP Certification and Wisniewski both noted. "Affected shortcuts can also be distributed over network shares or remote WebDAV shares," said Microsoft's advisory.
"[That makes] a very bad situation worse," said Wisniewski.
Microsoft did not set a timeline for patching the zero-day vulnerability; its next Patch Tuesday is not until Aug. 10.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Online Tutoring – A Boon for Quality Education
Online Tutoring – A Boon for Quality Education
Online tutoring is a planned teaching/learning process, live and fully interactive one-on-one methodology by which knowledge is imparted using a wide spectrum of technologies, mainly Internet to reach learners at a distance. It is a tutoring portal working for all your educational needs and where a student can learn via the Internet with the help of a professional, subject matter expert. It makes use of several web-based programs to achieve its goals. Online tutoring is now becoming the best way for students to get extra help in perusing their study smoothly and is being preferred by both students and their parents Microsoft MCTS Training.
Online tutoring is a collaborative process, which facilitates the students to plan out their program according to their own preferences. Flexibility of timings is an added advantage. Online educational constructive approach, provides a pool of subject matter experts and imparts one to one real time learning, with peer interaction for every student at its self paced working methodology.
The main advantages of online learning are…
Working in a highly safe, efficient, result oriented environment and round the clock educational services are provided to your child for considerably improving his/her results with better understanding of the concerned subject. Online tutoring focuses on improving their existing capabilities in solving problems, doing their homework in less time and also emphasize on the weak areas of your child, working with utmost perfection to bring out the best in them. It also strives hard for the considerable improvement in results of your child and provide them an extra edge over the other students.This technology is tailored for offering quality online courses by tutors who are screened, qualified and ready to help your child get better grades, brush up their skills and provide them with flexibility of time to pursue other extracurricular activities at the same time for an all round development of your ward. Moreover, with online tutoring students can go at their own pace and from the comfort of their homes to learn anywhere and usually at any time Microsoft MCITP Certification.
Online learning process and its goals…
This real-time tutoring/teaching process offers learning scenarios, worksheets, interactive exercises, an assignment, a multiple choice questionnaire, a quiz, a discussion or a case study for students via the use of multimedia tools such as VOIP, an instant messaging, email, online two way interactive whiteboards etc. This customized teaching service is most effective when voice, video, graphics, and text can all be used at the same time to make learning fun, highly interesting and relevant.
If you are looking forward to taking up an e-learning course but wonder if you have chosen the right e-learning site, so think before you choose…..
Online tutoring is a planned teaching/learning process, live and fully interactive one-on-one methodology by which knowledge is imparted using a wide spectrum of technologies, mainly Internet to reach learners at a distance. It is a tutoring portal working for all your educational needs and where a student can learn via the Internet with the help of a professional, subject matter expert. It makes use of several web-based programs to achieve its goals. Online tutoring is now becoming the best way for students to get extra help in perusing their study smoothly and is being preferred by both students and their parents Microsoft MCTS Training.
Online tutoring is a collaborative process, which facilitates the students to plan out their program according to their own preferences. Flexibility of timings is an added advantage. Online educational constructive approach, provides a pool of subject matter experts and imparts one to one real time learning, with peer interaction for every student at its self paced working methodology.
The main advantages of online learning are…
Working in a highly safe, efficient, result oriented environment and round the clock educational services are provided to your child for considerably improving his/her results with better understanding of the concerned subject. Online tutoring focuses on improving their existing capabilities in solving problems, doing their homework in less time and also emphasize on the weak areas of your child, working with utmost perfection to bring out the best in them. It also strives hard for the considerable improvement in results of your child and provide them an extra edge over the other students.This technology is tailored for offering quality online courses by tutors who are screened, qualified and ready to help your child get better grades, brush up their skills and provide them with flexibility of time to pursue other extracurricular activities at the same time for an all round development of your ward. Moreover, with online tutoring students can go at their own pace and from the comfort of their homes to learn anywhere and usually at any time Microsoft MCITP Certification.
Online learning process and its goals…
This real-time tutoring/teaching process offers learning scenarios, worksheets, interactive exercises, an assignment, a multiple choice questionnaire, a quiz, a discussion or a case study for students via the use of multimedia tools such as VOIP, an instant messaging, email, online two way interactive whiteboards etc. This customized teaching service is most effective when voice, video, graphics, and text can all be used at the same time to make learning fun, highly interesting and relevant.
If you are looking forward to taking up an e-learning course but wonder if you have chosen the right e-learning site, so think before you choose…..
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
How to Use Forums to Promote your Online Home Business
How to Use Forums to Promote your Online Home Business
If you plan to have a successful online home business, there is no better place in the world for you to hang out than the forums that the internet marketing gurus frequent.
There are numerous forums on the internet and it is important to spend time searching for the more highly respected ones, which are well managed with good moderators who maintain the standard of the forum by strictly enforcing the rules Microsoft MCTS Training.
In these forums you will find members share a common goal to make money on the Internet. As you start participating regularly in the forum, you will find yourself learning faster and earning more, guaranteed. Top forums are the stomping ground for the best online home business owners on the planet as well as the training ground for thousands of up and coming Internet marketers. They are a place to share ideas, find answers, make friends and develop partnerships. The top forums are an organic, always growing, support resource for your entire online home business. The only way to benefit from these forums is to experience them yourself.
Prior to actually joining a forum, spend sometime just browsing the forum and reading some posts to see that it actually suits your needs and that you feel comfortable in the environment. On joining a forum it is vital that you read the rules as you will find they do vary from forum to forum. Be sure to fill out your profile and most important be sure to complete the signature section, which will allow you to put the website details of your online home business, which will lead to back links, as postings get indexed by the search engines. The forum rules will dictate how many characters or lines or urls you can add.
Once you have joined a forum look for the category that invites you to introduce yourself and take advantage of this. Remember, you are not there to advertise your online home business, your signature will do that for you, simply tell the forum where you are from and a little about yourself. Then I would suggest that you read through some of the posts, get involved in some of the discussions and see if you can offer advice or help to some of the questions raised. Your main function in a forum is to contribute positively and constructively. You will find that by reading posts you will also learn so much as you will find advice and answers from the top gurus that you can use to promote your online home business. As you become more familiar with the surroundings you can then start new threads with questions of your own.
You can increase your presence on the internet very quickly by actively participating in a few forums and constructively posting 3 to 5 times a day in each forum. Spend time in the forums every day just browsing, reading through topics and responding to posts as desired Microsoft MCITP Certification.
Some forums have categories where you can submit your articles, do not ignore this if you have articles to submit because other members may select them to send to their lists. Also fellow members could be e-zine owners and they might just pick your article up for their newsletter. You may also find a category dedicated to discussion on all topics related to self-improvement. This most certainly fits into a money-making forum because power, energy and creativity translates into being able to make more money.
You may also find categories dedicated to joint ventures, free e-books, reciprocal links, special offers as well as off-topic forums where you can discuss anything.
The more you get involved, the more you will learn and the more you learn and apply, the more you will earn from your online home business!
If you plan to have a successful online home business, there is no better place in the world for you to hang out than the forums that the internet marketing gurus frequent.
There are numerous forums on the internet and it is important to spend time searching for the more highly respected ones, which are well managed with good moderators who maintain the standard of the forum by strictly enforcing the rules Microsoft MCTS Training.
In these forums you will find members share a common goal to make money on the Internet. As you start participating regularly in the forum, you will find yourself learning faster and earning more, guaranteed. Top forums are the stomping ground for the best online home business owners on the planet as well as the training ground for thousands of up and coming Internet marketers. They are a place to share ideas, find answers, make friends and develop partnerships. The top forums are an organic, always growing, support resource for your entire online home business. The only way to benefit from these forums is to experience them yourself.
Prior to actually joining a forum, spend sometime just browsing the forum and reading some posts to see that it actually suits your needs and that you feel comfortable in the environment. On joining a forum it is vital that you read the rules as you will find they do vary from forum to forum. Be sure to fill out your profile and most important be sure to complete the signature section, which will allow you to put the website details of your online home business, which will lead to back links, as postings get indexed by the search engines. The forum rules will dictate how many characters or lines or urls you can add.
Once you have joined a forum look for the category that invites you to introduce yourself and take advantage of this. Remember, you are not there to advertise your online home business, your signature will do that for you, simply tell the forum where you are from and a little about yourself. Then I would suggest that you read through some of the posts, get involved in some of the discussions and see if you can offer advice or help to some of the questions raised. Your main function in a forum is to contribute positively and constructively. You will find that by reading posts you will also learn so much as you will find advice and answers from the top gurus that you can use to promote your online home business. As you become more familiar with the surroundings you can then start new threads with questions of your own.
You can increase your presence on the internet very quickly by actively participating in a few forums and constructively posting 3 to 5 times a day in each forum. Spend time in the forums every day just browsing, reading through topics and responding to posts as desired Microsoft MCITP Certification.
Some forums have categories where you can submit your articles, do not ignore this if you have articles to submit because other members may select them to send to their lists. Also fellow members could be e-zine owners and they might just pick your article up for their newsletter. You may also find a category dedicated to discussion on all topics related to self-improvement. This most certainly fits into a money-making forum because power, energy and creativity translates into being able to make more money.
You may also find categories dedicated to joint ventures, free e-books, reciprocal links, special offers as well as off-topic forums where you can discuss anything.
The more you get involved, the more you will learn and the more you learn and apply, the more you will earn from your online home business!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
5 reasons why you should learn Microsoft Language
5 reasons why you should learn Microsoft Language
First, Microsoft Languageare the common languages that used in the programming world. Microsoft Language were the basic languages used to program, these are useful for talking to machines, creating more complex program. Such complex program needs direct access to the memory. Use of pointers to the memory, linked list will be more transparent to the programmers.
are the common languages that used in the programming world. Microsoft MCTS Training Language were the basic languages used to program, these are useful for talking to machines, creating more complex program. Such complex program needs direct access to the memory. Use of pointers to the memory, linked list will be more transparent to the programmers.
Second, Microsoft Language are faster than other Python counterpart, because Microsoft Language create executable binaries. On the contrary, other higher level languages usually create interpreted files. Interpreted files will need intermediary like virtual machine to execute and compile, which result in a slower processing time.
Third Microsoft Language is a good way to learn the object-oriented programming (OOP) skill. OOP is an important aspect for programmer to develop their first interactive program. OOP skill ensures the flexibility of the program. Such useable features are like inheritance, polymorphism.
Fourth, the existing system programming is mainly written in Microsoft Language For example, Linux kernel code is written using C. This is to consider the fact that C has its features like pointers, structs, linked lists which enhance the flexibility of the programming.
Fifth, Microsoft Language is the ideal solution to the large projects. Microsoft Languagecombines the low level language like C and some of the high level elements of python language Microsoft LanguageStandard Template Library also provides allocation of memory for integers, chars (characters) and strings and so on. Furthermore, Microsoft Language object orientation provides modularize feature that help and improve in debugging.
To conclude, there are numerous reasons that one should learn Microsoft MCITP Certification Language As a programmer, one should learn other languages so that they can explore the suitable languages used for programming.
First, Microsoft Languageare the common languages that used in the programming world. Microsoft Language were the basic languages used to program, these are useful for talking to machines, creating more complex program. Such complex program needs direct access to the memory. Use of pointers to the memory, linked list will be more transparent to the programmers.
are the common languages that used in the programming world. Microsoft MCTS Training Language were the basic languages used to program, these are useful for talking to machines, creating more complex program. Such complex program needs direct access to the memory. Use of pointers to the memory, linked list will be more transparent to the programmers.
Second, Microsoft Language are faster than other Python counterpart, because Microsoft Language create executable binaries. On the contrary, other higher level languages usually create interpreted files. Interpreted files will need intermediary like virtual machine to execute and compile, which result in a slower processing time.
Third Microsoft Language is a good way to learn the object-oriented programming (OOP) skill. OOP is an important aspect for programmer to develop their first interactive program. OOP skill ensures the flexibility of the program. Such useable features are like inheritance, polymorphism.
Fourth, the existing system programming is mainly written in Microsoft Language For example, Linux kernel code is written using C. This is to consider the fact that C has its features like pointers, structs, linked lists which enhance the flexibility of the programming.
Fifth, Microsoft Language is the ideal solution to the large projects. Microsoft Languagecombines the low level language like C and some of the high level elements of python language Microsoft LanguageStandard Template Library also provides allocation of memory for integers, chars (characters) and strings and so on. Furthermore, Microsoft Language object orientation provides modularize feature that help and improve in debugging.
To conclude, there are numerous reasons that one should learn Microsoft MCITP Certification Language As a programmer, one should learn other languages so that they can explore the suitable languages used for programming.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute Clinches HP Innovate 2009 Awar
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute Clinches HP Innovate 2009 Award
HP recognises outstanding creative ideas of young engineering graduates in India.
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, has won the HP Innovate 2009 award for the technical paper on Ce-Pal - an infra red based remote control for cerebral palsy patients Microsoft MCTS Training.
The paper aims to assist spastic cerebral palsy patients in using electronic appliances like TV, tape recorder, laptop, PC or any other equipment operating at Infra Red frequency.
HP India Friday announced the winners of the second annual edition of 'HP Innovate 2009'. The award recognises and rewards outstanding creative ideas of young engineering graduates in India.
NIT Calicut was awarded the second prize for the paper on Image Processing while the third prize was won by Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, Noida for the paper on Processor usage monitoring and management system.
The awards include HP Mini, tablet PCs and laptops for the teams that stood first, second and third, respectively. Additionally, the winning team along with their faculty guide will be invited to a fully sponsored visit to HP Labs, Palo Alto, USA and interact with eminent researchers there Microsoft MCITP Certification.
"Going by the tremendous response to the programme, there is a wealth of talent in India and this is an opportunity for the bright young minds to meet and interact with senior researchers from Labs and exchange ideas," said Dr. Vinnie Jauhari, region lead, India, HP Labs Open Innovation. "HP's Open Innovation Office emphasises HP's aim to help universities drive innovation and create new models of success for integrating technology into learning."
HP recognises outstanding creative ideas of young engineering graduates in India.
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Gandhinagar, has won the HP Innovate 2009 award for the technical paper on Ce-Pal - an infra red based remote control for cerebral palsy patients Microsoft MCTS Training.
The paper aims to assist spastic cerebral palsy patients in using electronic appliances like TV, tape recorder, laptop, PC or any other equipment operating at Infra Red frequency.
HP India Friday announced the winners of the second annual edition of 'HP Innovate 2009'. The award recognises and rewards outstanding creative ideas of young engineering graduates in India.
NIT Calicut was awarded the second prize for the paper on Image Processing while the third prize was won by Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, Noida for the paper on Processor usage monitoring and management system.
The awards include HP Mini, tablet PCs and laptops for the teams that stood first, second and third, respectively. Additionally, the winning team along with their faculty guide will be invited to a fully sponsored visit to HP Labs, Palo Alto, USA and interact with eminent researchers there Microsoft MCITP Certification.
"Going by the tremendous response to the programme, there is a wealth of talent in India and this is an opportunity for the bright young minds to meet and interact with senior researchers from Labs and exchange ideas," said Dr. Vinnie Jauhari, region lead, India, HP Labs Open Innovation. "HP's Open Innovation Office emphasises HP's aim to help universities drive innovation and create new models of success for integrating technology into learning."
Friday, July 16, 2010
Trends In Software Testing
Trends In Software Testing
As the complexity of software applications increases, testing becomes more crucial. And in the process, more time consuming. Here is a list of emerging testing practices.
Software is everywhere today and is becoming increasingly mission critical, whether in satellites and planes, or e-commerce websites. Software complexity is also on the rise - thanks to distributed, multi-tier applications targeting multiple devices (mobile, thin/thick clients, clouds, etc). Added to that are development methodologies like extreme programming and agile development. No wonder software testing professionals are finding it hard to keep up with the change.
As a result, many projects fail while the rest are completed significantly late, and provide only a subset of the originally planned functionality. Poorly tested software and buggy code cost corporations billions of dollars annually, and most defects are found by end users in production environments.
Given the magnitude of the problem, software-testing professionals are finding innovative means of keeping up - both in terms of tools and methodologies. This article covers some of the recent trends in software testing - and why they're making the headlines. Test driven development (TDD)
TDD is a software development technique that ensures your source code is thoroughly unit-tested as compared to traditional testing methodologies, where unit testing is recommended but not enforced. It combines test-first development (where you write a test before you write just enough code to fulfil that test), and refactoring (where, if the existing design isn't the best possible to enable you to implement a particular functionality, you improve it to enable the new feature).
TDD is not a new technique-but it is suddenly centre stage, thanks to the continued popularity of software development methodologies such as agile development and extreme programming.
Optimisations to TDD include the use of tools (such as PEX/peer exchange for Visual studio - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ ) to improve code coverage, by creating parameterised unit tests that look for boundary conditions, exceptions, and assertion failures.
TDD is gaining popularity as it allows for incremental software development - where bugs are detected and fixed as soon as the code is written, rather than at the end of an iteration or a milestone.
For more details on TDD, use the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development
http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html
Virtualisation testing
Testing is becoming increasingly complex - the test environment set-up, getting people access to the environment, and loading it with the right bits from development, all take up about 30-50 per cent of the total testing time in a typical organisation. What is worse is that when testers find bugs, it is hard to re-create the same environment for developers to investigate and fix bugs. Test organisations are increasingly gravitating towards virtualisation technologies to cut down test set-up times significantly. These technologies include:
* accelerate set-up/tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a clean state, improving machine utilisation
* eliminate no repro bugs by allowing developers to recreate complex environments easily
* improve quality by automating virtual machine provisioning, building deployment, and building verification testing in an integrated manner (details later)
As an offshoot, virtualisation ensures that test labs reduce their energy footprint, resulting in a positive environmental impact, as well as significant savings.
Some of the companies that have virtual test lab management solutions are VMware, VMLogix, and Surgient. Microsoft MCTS Training has recently announced a Lab Management (http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/VisualStudio/Lab-Management-coming-to-Visual-Studio-Team-System-2010/) product as part of its Visual Studio Team System 2010 release. Lab Management supports multiple environment management, snapshots to easily restore to a previous state, virtual network isolation to allow multiple test environments to run concurrently, and a workflow to allow developers to have easy access to environments to reproduce and fix defects.
Theresa Lanowitz, founder of Voke, a firm involved with analysis of trends in the IT world, expects virtualisation to become ‘the defining technology of the 21st century', with organisations of every size set to benefit from virtualisation as a part of its core infrastructure.
Continuous integration
CI is a trend that is rapidly being adopted in testing, where the team members integrate their work with the rest of the development team on a frequent basis by committing all changes to a central versioning system. Beyond maintaining a common code repository, other characteristics of a CI environment include build automation, auto-deployment of the build into a production-like environment, and ensuring a self-test mechanism such that at the very least, a minimal set of tests are run to confirm that the code behaves as expected.
Leveraging virtualised test environments, tools such as Microsoft MCITP Certification Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) can create sophisticated CI workflows. As soon as code is checked in, a build workflow kicks in that compiles the code - deploys it on to a virtualised test environment, triggers a set of unit and functional tests on the test environment, and reports on the results.
VSTS takes the build workflow one step further, and performs the build before the check-in is finalised, allowing the check-in to be aborted if it would cause a break, or if it fails the tests. And given historical code coverage data from test runs, the tool can identify which one of the several thousand test cases needs to be run when a new build comes out - significantly reducing the build validation time.
One obvious benefit of continuous integration is transparency. Failed builds and tests are found quickly rather than having to wait for the next build. The developer who checked in the offending code is probably still nearby and can quickly fix or roll back the change.
For a complete set of tools that help enable CI, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Integration.
Crowd testing
Crowd testing is a new and emerging trend in which, rather than relying on a dedicated team of testers (in-house or out sourced), companies rely on virtual test teams (created on demand) to get complete test coverage and reduce the time to market for their applications.
The company defines its test requirements in terms of scenarios, environments, and the type of testing (functional, performance, etc). A crowd test vendor (such as uTest - www.utest.com) identifies a pool of testers that meet the requirements, creates a project, and assigns work. Testers check the application, report bugs, and communicate with the company via an online portal. Crowd testing vendors also provide other tools, such as powerful reporting engines and test optimisation utilities. Some of the crowd testing vendors are domain specific - such as Mob4hire (www.mob4hire.com), which focuses on mobile application testing. Testers will bid on various projects specific to their handsets. Developers will choose the testers that they require, and will deploy test plans for the mobile application they are developing. On completion of the test, the mobile tester will get paid for the work.
One obvious advantage is in terms of reducing the test cycle time. But crowd testing is being used in various other scenarios as well - for example, to do usability studies on new user interfaces. The cost savings can be substantial.
Tools driven developer testing
Traditionally, developer testing was primarily limited to unit testing and some code coverage metrics. However, as organisations realised that the cost of defects found in development was exponentially lower than that found in test or production, they have begun to invest in tooling to enable developers to find bugs early on.
IDE-integrated tools have made the self-testing practice acceptable to developers, and the unit-testing and coverage analysis process automated for them. These tools also make it easy to analyse performance and compare it with a baseline by extending the unit test infrastructure.
Development teams are also expected to perform a level of security testing (threat modelling, buffer overflow, sequel injection, etc). For teams developing on native languages such as C/C++, developers are also required to use run-time analysis tools to check for memory leaks, memory corruptions and thread deadlocks. Developers are also using static analysis tools to find accessibility, localisation and globalisation issues -- and in some cases more sophisticated errors related to memory management and performance simulation -- by using data flow analysis and other techniques.
As a result of using these innovative methods, testers can now spend a lot more of their time on integration testing, stress, platform coverage, and end-to-end scenario testing. This will help them detect higher-level defects that would have otherwise trickled down to production.
As the complexity of software applications increases, testing becomes more crucial. And in the process, more time consuming. Here is a list of emerging testing practices.
Software is everywhere today and is becoming increasingly mission critical, whether in satellites and planes, or e-commerce websites. Software complexity is also on the rise - thanks to distributed, multi-tier applications targeting multiple devices (mobile, thin/thick clients, clouds, etc). Added to that are development methodologies like extreme programming and agile development. No wonder software testing professionals are finding it hard to keep up with the change.
As a result, many projects fail while the rest are completed significantly late, and provide only a subset of the originally planned functionality. Poorly tested software and buggy code cost corporations billions of dollars annually, and most defects are found by end users in production environments.
Given the magnitude of the problem, software-testing professionals are finding innovative means of keeping up - both in terms of tools and methodologies. This article covers some of the recent trends in software testing - and why they're making the headlines. Test driven development (TDD)
TDD is a software development technique that ensures your source code is thoroughly unit-tested as compared to traditional testing methodologies, where unit testing is recommended but not enforced. It combines test-first development (where you write a test before you write just enough code to fulfil that test), and refactoring (where, if the existing design isn't the best possible to enable you to implement a particular functionality, you improve it to enable the new feature).
TDD is not a new technique-but it is suddenly centre stage, thanks to the continued popularity of software development methodologies such as agile development and extreme programming.
Optimisations to TDD include the use of tools (such as PEX/peer exchange for Visual studio - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ ) to improve code coverage, by creating parameterised unit tests that look for boundary conditions, exceptions, and assertion failures.
TDD is gaining popularity as it allows for incremental software development - where bugs are detected and fixed as soon as the code is written, rather than at the end of an iteration or a milestone.
For more details on TDD, use the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development
http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html
Virtualisation testing
Testing is becoming increasingly complex - the test environment set-up, getting people access to the environment, and loading it with the right bits from development, all take up about 30-50 per cent of the total testing time in a typical organisation. What is worse is that when testers find bugs, it is hard to re-create the same environment for developers to investigate and fix bugs. Test organisations are increasingly gravitating towards virtualisation technologies to cut down test set-up times significantly. These technologies include:
* accelerate set-up/tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a clean state, improving machine utilisation
* eliminate no repro bugs by allowing developers to recreate complex environments easily
* improve quality by automating virtual machine provisioning, building deployment, and building verification testing in an integrated manner (details later)
As an offshoot, virtualisation ensures that test labs reduce their energy footprint, resulting in a positive environmental impact, as well as significant savings.
Some of the companies that have virtual test lab management solutions are VMware, VMLogix, and Surgient. Microsoft MCTS Training has recently announced a Lab Management (http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/VisualStudio/Lab-Management-coming-to-Visual-Studio-Team-System-2010/) product as part of its Visual Studio Team System 2010 release. Lab Management supports multiple environment management, snapshots to easily restore to a previous state, virtual network isolation to allow multiple test environments to run concurrently, and a workflow to allow developers to have easy access to environments to reproduce and fix defects.
Theresa Lanowitz, founder of Voke, a firm involved with analysis of trends in the IT world, expects virtualisation to become ‘the defining technology of the 21st century', with organisations of every size set to benefit from virtualisation as a part of its core infrastructure.
Continuous integration
CI is a trend that is rapidly being adopted in testing, where the team members integrate their work with the rest of the development team on a frequent basis by committing all changes to a central versioning system. Beyond maintaining a common code repository, other characteristics of a CI environment include build automation, auto-deployment of the build into a production-like environment, and ensuring a self-test mechanism such that at the very least, a minimal set of tests are run to confirm that the code behaves as expected.
Leveraging virtualised test environments, tools such as Microsoft MCITP Certification Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) can create sophisticated CI workflows. As soon as code is checked in, a build workflow kicks in that compiles the code - deploys it on to a virtualised test environment, triggers a set of unit and functional tests on the test environment, and reports on the results.
VSTS takes the build workflow one step further, and performs the build before the check-in is finalised, allowing the check-in to be aborted if it would cause a break, or if it fails the tests. And given historical code coverage data from test runs, the tool can identify which one of the several thousand test cases needs to be run when a new build comes out - significantly reducing the build validation time.
One obvious benefit of continuous integration is transparency. Failed builds and tests are found quickly rather than having to wait for the next build. The developer who checked in the offending code is probably still nearby and can quickly fix or roll back the change.
For a complete set of tools that help enable CI, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Integration.
Crowd testing
Crowd testing is a new and emerging trend in which, rather than relying on a dedicated team of testers (in-house or out sourced), companies rely on virtual test teams (created on demand) to get complete test coverage and reduce the time to market for their applications.
The company defines its test requirements in terms of scenarios, environments, and the type of testing (functional, performance, etc). A crowd test vendor (such as uTest - www.utest.com) identifies a pool of testers that meet the requirements, creates a project, and assigns work. Testers check the application, report bugs, and communicate with the company via an online portal. Crowd testing vendors also provide other tools, such as powerful reporting engines and test optimisation utilities. Some of the crowd testing vendors are domain specific - such as Mob4hire (www.mob4hire.com), which focuses on mobile application testing. Testers will bid on various projects specific to their handsets. Developers will choose the testers that they require, and will deploy test plans for the mobile application they are developing. On completion of the test, the mobile tester will get paid for the work.
One obvious advantage is in terms of reducing the test cycle time. But crowd testing is being used in various other scenarios as well - for example, to do usability studies on new user interfaces. The cost savings can be substantial.
Tools driven developer testing
Traditionally, developer testing was primarily limited to unit testing and some code coverage metrics. However, as organisations realised that the cost of defects found in development was exponentially lower than that found in test or production, they have begun to invest in tooling to enable developers to find bugs early on.
IDE-integrated tools have made the self-testing practice acceptable to developers, and the unit-testing and coverage analysis process automated for them. These tools also make it easy to analyse performance and compare it with a baseline by extending the unit test infrastructure.
Development teams are also expected to perform a level of security testing (threat modelling, buffer overflow, sequel injection, etc). For teams developing on native languages such as C/C++, developers are also required to use run-time analysis tools to check for memory leaks, memory corruptions and thread deadlocks. Developers are also using static analysis tools to find accessibility, localisation and globalisation issues -- and in some cases more sophisticated errors related to memory management and performance simulation -- by using data flow analysis and other techniques.
As a result of using these innovative methods, testers can now spend a lot more of their time on integration testing, stress, platform coverage, and end-to-end scenario testing. This will help them detect higher-level defects that would have otherwise trickled down to production.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Extended Support Begins for Windows XP and Continues Until 2014
Extended Support Begins for Windows XP and Continues Until 2014
Recently there has been a fair amount of press coverage regarding the end of Mainstream Support for Windows XP. Released at the tail end of 2001, Windows XP has been a solid hit in the marketplace and there has been some concern about what the move from Mainstream to Extended Support means for customers.
To be clear, Microsoft MCTS Training will continue to support Windows XP until 8 April 2014 – about five years from now. So what are the differences between Mainstream and Extended?
Microsoft divides support for Business and Developer products (including the Windows XP operating system) into two distinct timeframes: Mainstream Support and Extended Support. In a nutshell, Mainstream Support provides both consumers and enterprise customers with a full offering of support including complimentary support, design change requests, security updates and other kinds of updates for the product.
Extended Support does alter the range of support a bit, but for the vast majority of customers the essential core remains the same. For example, customers will continue to receive free security updates and can call in for paid support until the second Tuesday in April of 2014. Enterprise customers with Premier Support who may need non-security hotfixes should consider enrolling in an optional support program named Extended Hotfix Support (EHS). EHS is required by very few customers as the product has matured to the point where design changes are relatively infrequent. For more information on obtaining Extended Hotfix Support, enterprise customers should contact their Microsoft MCITP Certification account representative.
Customers who purchased Windows XP pre-installed on their machines will continue to receive support from the manufacturer of their PC (often called the Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM). Each OEM determines how long they will support products pre-installed on their machines. Therefore, the April 14th transition from Mainstream to Extended Support is most relevant for customers who purchased Windows XP through retailers or volume licensing, a relatively small piece of the XP installed base.
Recommendations for users of Windows XP
* To receive support and security updates, you must be running on a supported product and on a supported service pack version. For Windows XP this is currently SP2 or SP3.
* Visit Windows Update regularly and confirm you have installed all available security updates. These are critical to keep your machine free from malware.
* Rest easy knowing that Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP for another five years!
Thanks for your continued questions and comments. More information on Microsoft’s support policies can also be found on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle website. At Microsoft, we value our customer’s experiences using our products and providing industry-leading support is just one aspect of that commitment.
Recently there has been a fair amount of press coverage regarding the end of Mainstream Support for Windows XP. Released at the tail end of 2001, Windows XP has been a solid hit in the marketplace and there has been some concern about what the move from Mainstream to Extended Support means for customers.
To be clear, Microsoft MCTS Training will continue to support Windows XP until 8 April 2014 – about five years from now. So what are the differences between Mainstream and Extended?
Microsoft divides support for Business and Developer products (including the Windows XP operating system) into two distinct timeframes: Mainstream Support and Extended Support. In a nutshell, Mainstream Support provides both consumers and enterprise customers with a full offering of support including complimentary support, design change requests, security updates and other kinds of updates for the product.
Extended Support does alter the range of support a bit, but for the vast majority of customers the essential core remains the same. For example, customers will continue to receive free security updates and can call in for paid support until the second Tuesday in April of 2014. Enterprise customers with Premier Support who may need non-security hotfixes should consider enrolling in an optional support program named Extended Hotfix Support (EHS). EHS is required by very few customers as the product has matured to the point where design changes are relatively infrequent. For more information on obtaining Extended Hotfix Support, enterprise customers should contact their Microsoft MCITP Certification account representative.
Customers who purchased Windows XP pre-installed on their machines will continue to receive support from the manufacturer of their PC (often called the Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM). Each OEM determines how long they will support products pre-installed on their machines. Therefore, the April 14th transition from Mainstream to Extended Support is most relevant for customers who purchased Windows XP through retailers or volume licensing, a relatively small piece of the XP installed base.
Recommendations for users of Windows XP
* To receive support and security updates, you must be running on a supported product and on a supported service pack version. For Windows XP this is currently SP2 or SP3.
* Visit Windows Update regularly and confirm you have installed all available security updates. These are critical to keep your machine free from malware.
* Rest easy knowing that Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP for another five years!
Thanks for your continued questions and comments. More information on Microsoft’s support policies can also be found on the Microsoft Support Lifecycle website. At Microsoft, we value our customer’s experiences using our products and providing industry-leading support is just one aspect of that commitment.
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