Choose your java wisely…Written by Shashank
Java has come along a long way. Many would agree with this. I did not until Java 1.5 “Tiger” hit me. The tiger had several new features, and more importantly, it has new syntax. Six major upgrades that tiger presents are certainly generics, enhanced for loop, autoboxing (unboxing), improvement on Typesafe enum, Static import and metadata. Out of these six, at least four would be used in my daily “programming” life. Of course there are many more, which can be found at java’s official site. From java 1.1 to 1.4, it seemed more like new frills were simply added. It felt like earning more brownie points when you downloaded newer version. But should I start using 1.5 immediately, maybe not.The developers and programmers (if you distinguish between them) are left with one great dilemma (me too). It certainly is as to which version to use when preparing software in java. This problem hides itself under carpet when you are programming for a specific client with a specific system where you can get it upgrade on site, but when app is going to be used by Mr. Williams from South Africa and Ms. Lee from Japan, you really have to give a thought as to whether your app is going to run on both systems (that is why java was made in first place, isn’t it?). I’ve always had latest version of sdk, yet I would try and target compiling in a lower possible version, so that even those people would be able to use apps, who were, well, frozen in time and didn’t go up “version ladder”. For e.g., ordinary applets, by me and my company, in most of cases would be compiled in java 1.1, so that no user ends up waiting for an hour before plugin for latest version is downloaded and installed (get yourself a coffee if your yawning). For e.g., once on a tour, I happened to visit some site in a cyber café, which said that I needed to install java plugin 1.4 to view page correctly (apparently, cyber cafes don’t bother much about upgrading java), and when I did, it turned out to be a stupid advertisement (Ahhh! What agony!). Of course, over a period of time, you expect users to have gone to a level of higher java plugin courtesy other company’s applets, but just to be sure…
| | Open Sesame - Password SecurityWritten by Terrence F. Doheny
Open Sesame – Password Security“Open Sesame!” is probably most famous password in literature. It gave Ali Baba access to vast treasure. In realm of technology, computer passwords also give access to valuable treasures: precious business and personal data. Information about your personal life, buying habits, credit quality and life style is valuable to those who can profit from it. For Corporation, information has even greater worth. It is not “Bricks and Mortar” but intangibles such as intellectual property, client lists, market strategies, pricing and compensation that account for over half value of modern enterprise. All of this personal and business data most likely resides on a database somewhere and is available with a password. In fact, passwords are most common means of entry in any system. They are also acknowledged as most vulnerable points for security. “Weak” or compromised passwords are easiest way for hackers to gain entry into a system. Simple or short passwords can be easily discovered through “brute force” or “dictionary” attacks which concentrate intense computer power to crack a password. A two letter password, for example, has only 676 combinations. A password with eight letters offers more safety with 208,000,000 combinations. Ideally, a password should consist of 8 or more characters. They should also contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers. “A$d3B5i9X” would be an example. Microsoft security has encouraged concept of “Pass Phrase” as an alternative. A phrase such as,”TheLastGoodBookUBoughtCost$25!” has all of needed elements and is also easy to remember.
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