Software Engineers - TeamBeta - 22by7

What is P2P TV?

2008-05-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

P2PTV

Source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Learn more about using Wikipedia for research •

P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.

The term P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer (P2P) software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources. The draw to these applications is significant because they have the potential to make any TV channel globally available.

Technology and use

In a P2PTV system, each user, while downloading a video stream, is simultaneously also uploading that stream to other users, thus contributing to the overall available bandwidth. The arriving streams are typically a few minutes time-delayed compared to the original sources. The video quality of the channels usually depends on how many users are watching; the video quality is better if there are more users. The architecture of many P2PTV networks can be thought of as real-time versions of BitTorrent: if a user wishes to view a certain channel, the P2PTV software contacts a "tracker server" for that channel in order to obtain addresses of peers who distribute that channel; it then contacts these peers to receive the feed. The tracker records the user's address, so that it can be given to other users who wish to view the same channel. In effect, this creates an overlay network on top of the regular internet for the distribution of real-time video content.

Some applications allow users to broadcast their own streams, whether self-produced, obtained from a video file, or through a TV tuner card or video capture card.

Many of the commercial P2PTV applications were developed in China (TVants, TVUPlayer, PPLive, PPStream, SopCast). The majority of available applications broadcast mainly Asian TV stations, with the exception of TVUPlayer, which carries a number of North American stations including CBS, Spike TV, and Fox News. Some applications distribute TV channels without a legal license to do so; this utilization of P2P technology is particularly popular to view channels that are either not available locally, or only available by paid subscription, as is the case for some sports channels.^[1]

Issues for broadcasters

Broadcasting via a P2PTV system is usually much cheaper than the alternatives and can be done by private individuals.

No QoS. Compared to unicasting (the standard server-client architecture used in streaming media) no one can guarantee a reliable stream, since every user is a rebroadcaster. Each viewer is a part of a chain of viewers which all can have a negative influence on the reliability of the stream (by having a slow PC, a filled downlink or uplink or an unreliable consumer grade DSL or cable connection).

Less control. If a broadcaster prefers to limit access to their content based on regions, and would like good data on viewer behaviour, such as volume, trends and viewing time, then a traditional broadcasting solution offers more control.

Professional broadcasters and distributors have used a hybrid solution for many years. Distribution servers are not centrally installed, but are rolled out in a smart, decentralized way. A central management facility manages content distribution over multiple peer servers (also known as Edge servers, or Caches), strategically located near user swarms (generally popular access ISP networks), manages load balancing, redirection of users, view reporting and QoS. Examples are Akamai.

Applications

Alluvium - based in Texas, USA

Feidian- based in China mainland

Joost

KeyholeTV

LiveStation - based in United Kingdom

Octoshape

PPLive - based in China mainland

PPStream - based in China mainland

Rawflow

RayV (Plugin is embedded in browser and requires no standalone client to be run. Mac and Linux version in September 2008)

ReelTime.com

Soogal

SopCast (one of the few applications that can also be used on Linux)

StreamerOne (for Windows and Linux)

TVants

TVUPlayer

Free software to broadcast independently

DistribuStream

Geekast and its peercast-servent package

FreeCast (P2Pradio)

MediaBlog

MetaASO Mermaid

PeerCast

Regards,

K. Santosh Iyer

“Live Life to the Full for U only Live Once”

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What do you mean by CAPTCHA?

2008-04-22T23:41:00.001-07:00

Telling Humans and Computers Apart Automatically

A CAPTCHA is a program that can generate and grade tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current

computer programs can't. The term CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University. At the time, they developed the first CAPTCHA to be used by Yahoo.

Where Can I Get a CAPTCHA For My Site?

A free, secure CAPTCHA implementation is available here from the reCAPTCHA project at Carnegie Mellon University.

Applications of CAPTCHAs

CAPTCHAs have several applications for practical security, including (but not limited to):

• Preventing Comment Spam in Blogs. Most bloggers are familiar with programs that submit bogus comments, usually for the purpose of raising search engine ranks of some website (e.g.,"buy penny stocks here"). This is called comment spam. By using a CAPTCHA, only humans can enter comments on a blog. There is no need to make users sign up before they enter a comment, and no legitimate comments are ever lost!

• Protecting Website Registration. Several companies (Yahoo!, Microsoft, etc.) offer free email services. Up until a few years ago, most of these services suffered from a specific type of attack:"bots" that would sign up for thousands of email accounts every minute. The solution to this problem was to use CAPTCHAs to ensure that only humans obtain free accounts. In general, free services should be protected with a CAPTCHA in order to prevent abuse by automated programs.

• Online Polls. In November 1999, http://www.slashdot.org released an online poll asking which was the best graduate school in computer science (a dangerous question to ask over the web!). As is the case with most online polls, IP addresses of voters were recorded in order to prevent single users from voting more than once. However, students at Carnegie Mellon found a way to stuff the ballots using programs that voted for CMU thousands of times. CMU's score started growing rapidly. The next day, students at MIT wrote their own program and the poll became a contest between voting "bots." MIT finished with 21,156 votes, Carnegie Mellon with 21,032 and every

other school with less than 1,000. Can the result of any online poll be trusted? Not unless the poll ensures that only humans can vote.

• Preventing Dictionary Attacks. CAPTCHAs can also be used to prevent dictionary attacks in password systems. The idea is simple: prevent a computer from being able to iterate through the entire space of passwords by requiring it to solve a CAPTCHA after a certain number of unsuccessful logins.

• Search Engine Bots. It is sometimes desirable to keep web pages un-indexed to prevent others from finding them easily. There is an html tag to prevent search engine bots from reading web pages. The tag, however, doesn't guarantee that bots won't read a web page; it only serves to say "no bots, please." Search engine bots, since they usually belong to large companies, respect web pages that don't want to allow them in. However, in order to truly guarantee that bots won't enter a web site, CAPTCHAs are needed.

• Worms and Spam. CAPTCHAs also offer a plausible solution against email worms and spam: "I will only accept an email if I know there is a human behind the other computer." A few companies are already marketing this idea.

Guidelines

If your website needs protection from abuse, it is recommended that you use a CAPTCHA. There are many CAPTCHA implementations, some better than others. The following guidelines are strongly recommended

for any CAPTCHA:

• Accessibility. CAPTCHAs must be accessible. CAPTCHAs based solely on reading text — or other visual-perception tasks — prevent visually impaired users from accessing the protected resource. Such CAPTCHAs may make a site incompatible with Section 508 in the United States. Any implementation of a CAPTCHA should allow blind users to get around the barrier, for example, by permitting users to opt for an audio CAPTCHA.

• Image Security. Images of text should be distorted randomly before being presented to the user. Many implementations of CAPTCHAs use undistorted text, or text with only minor distortions. These implementations are vulnerable to simple automated attacks. For example, the CAPTCHAs shown below can all be broken using image processing techniques, mainly because they use a consistent font.

• Script Security. Building a secure CAPTCHA is not easy. In addition to making the images unreadable by computers, the system should ensure that there are no easy ways around it at the script level. Common examples of insecurities in this respect include: (1) Systems that pass the answer to the CAPTCHA in plain text as part of the web form. (2) Systems where a solution to the same CAPTCHA can be used multiple times (this makes the CAPTCHA vulnerable to so-called "replay attacks").

• Security Even After Wide-Spread Adoption. There are various "CAPTCHAs" that would be insecure if a significant number of sites start using them. An example of such a puzzle is asking text-based questions, such as a mathematical question ("what is 1+1"). Since a parser could easily be written that would allow bots to bypass this test, such "CAPTCHAs" rely on the fact that few sites use them, and thus that a bot author has no incentive to program their bot to solve that challenge. True CAPTCHAs should be secure even after a significant number of websites adopt them.

Academic Publications

• Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum and John Langford. Telling Humans and Computers Apart Automatically. In Communications of the ACM.

• Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper, and John Langford. CAPTCHA: Using Hard AI Problems for Security. In Eurocrypt.

60 More AJAX- and Javascript Solutions For Professional Coding

2008-04-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Given below is an article from Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz posted on Smashing Magazine. I am sharing it with you coz I think it would help all us AJAX learners grasp the concepts better.

“When it comes to design of modern web-applications, Ajax is considered as a standard approach. Interactive solutions for lightboxes, form validation, navigation, search, tooltips and tables are developed using Ajax libraries and nifty Ajax scripts. Ajax is useful and powerful. However, when using Ajax, one should keep in mind its drawbacks in terms of usability and accessibility. With an extensive use of Ajax, you can easily confuse your visitors offering too much control and too many features.

Nevertheless, it’s important to know what’s possible, particularly since you can develop new ideas further, improving the quality of your web applications. Since our last article 80+ AJAX-Solutions For Professional Coding many things have changed — new scripts were introduced, new creative solutions were developed, new robust development kits have been released. They all are supposed to serve a better user experience and provide more comfort for web-developers.

This post presents over 60 new useful Ajax scripts, libraries and solutions which you can use in your future projects. License agreements can change from time to time — please read them carefully before using the script in a commercial web-application.

You might want to consider checking out the following related posts:

30 Scripts For Galleries, Slideshows and Lightboxes presents scripts of impressive slideshows, lightboxes and galleries you can use for effective presentations of your images,
40+ Tooltips Scripts With AJAX, JavaScript & CSS with handy tooltips scripts for intuitive and well-designed visual clues,
Data Grids with AJAX, DHTML and JavaScript with free solutions for data grids, developed with AJAX, DHTML and/or JavaScript,
Powerful CSS-techniques For Effective Coding which features 50 new CSS-techniques, ideas and ready-to-use solutions for effective CSS-coding.

Please notice: the overview presented below is not just a yet-another-one-collection of Ajax-scripts. It’s a collection of really useful ones, the ones you can use in almost every project you’ll be working on.

Useful Ajax Scripts

Mocha UI
Mocha is a web applications user interface library built on the Mootools javascript framework. The Mocha GUI components are made with <canvas> tag graphics.

An Accessible Slider
“Recently we designed and developed an interface that required a slider control, which allows users to choose one or a range of values on a continuum. Values on a slider can represent anything from hours on a clock to the volume on a music player to a complex, proprietary data set. In its simplest form, the slider is displayed as an axis of values with a handle to drag and select a value, or two handles for selecting a range.”

FancyUpload
Swf meets Ajax. An upload widget that allows queued multiple-file upload including progress bars.

Coda Popup Bubbles
“When you move the mouse over the popup, this triggers a mouseout on the image used to trigger the popup being shown. I’ll explain (carefully) how to make sure the effect doesn’t fail in this situation.”

Facebook Style Input Box
The approach to re-create the autocomplete method of adding multiple recipients to messages used on Facebook. “I’d seen it in Facebook before, which has a really decent implementation of this concept (it work well, but it doesn’t respect any modern programming principles; basically, it’s a big tag soup with lots of inline Javascript)”

Rich Text Editor
The Rich Text Editor is a UI control that replaces a standard HTML textarea. It allows for the rich formatting of text content, including common structural treatments like lists, formatting treatments like bold and italic text, and drag-and-drop inclusion and sizing of images. The Rich Text Editor’s Toolbar is extensible via a plugin architecture so that advanced implementations can achieve a high degree of customization. The tool is based upon Yahoo UI Library.

iCarousel
iCarousel is an open source (free) javascript tool for creating carousel like widgets.

Ext JS - JavaScript Library
An extensive JavaScript-Framework with numerous modules and components such as tables, trees, windows, layouts, forms, and tabs. All of them look as if they’ve been used in standard desktop-applications.

Moo Wheel
The purpose of this script is to provide a unique and elegant way to visualize data using Javascript and the <canvas>-object. This type of visualization can be used to display connections between many different objects, be them people, places, things, or otherwise. The script is licensed under an MIT-style license.

Product Slider
This ‘product slider’ is similar to a straight forward gallery, except that there is a slider to navigate the items, i.e. the bit the user controls to view the items.

Taggify Tooltips
This post demonstrates how you can use Taggify widget to enhance your blog with the functionality to show popup tooltips for parts of your images.

Gettyone Search Options Menu
Learn how to implement a Gettyone-like search options menu which display a layer with some search options below the input search field, when an user click on the input field to searching for something.

Moo Canvas
Modern browser support the <canvas> tag to allow 2D command-based drawing. This script provides the third dimension, allowing for browser drawing with pure JavaScript. To use, web developers only need to include a single script tag in their existing web pages.

Relay - Ajax Directory Manager
Relay is an Ajax-powered file management library. It has a multi-user access restriction, allowing the administrator to control user access to uploaded files. Features: drag-n-drop files and folders, dynamic loading file structure, upload progress bar, thumbnail view, including pdf and multiple users & accounts.

GlassBox
GlassBox is a compact Javascript User Interface (UI) library, which use Prototype and Script.aculo.us for some effects. With GlassBox you can build transparent border, colorful layouts and “Flash-like” effects. Take a look at the site itself: you can use the keyboard navigation: Keys 1-8 (display page), arrows left/right (previous/next page) and arrows up/down (Scroll content).

qGallery
qGallery is a Prototype-based gallery script which automatically takes care of the image processing, offers multipple viewing modes and comes with a number of transition effects.

Amberjack
Amberjack is a lightweight Open Source library, enabling you to create site tours. The JavaScript library is lightweight (~4K), stable, LGPL licensed, browser compatible, set up in 2 minutes & super-easy to customize.

GWT-Ext Widget Library
GWT-Ext is a powerful widget library that provides rich widgets like Grid with sort, paging and filtering, Tree’s with Drag & Drop support, highly customizable ComboBoxes, Tab Panels, Menus & Toolbars, Dialogs, Forms and a lot more right out of the box with a powerful and easy to use API. It uses GWT and Ext.

Flexigrid
Lightweight but rich data grid with resizable columns and a scrolling data to match the headers, plus an ability to connect to an xml based data source using Ajax to load the content.

cforms II
cforms is a plugin for WordPress, offering convenient deployment of multiple contact forms throughout your blog or even on the same page. The form submission utilizes AJAX, falls back, however, to a standard method in case AJAX/Javascript is not supported or disabled.

Masked Input Plugin
A masked input plugin for the jQuery javascript library. It allows a user to more easily enter fixed width input where you would like them to enter the data in a certain format (dates,phone numbers, etc). It has been tested on Internet Explorer 6/7, Firefox 1.5/2, Safari, and Opera.

Oversized Sliding Tabs
Sliding Tabs is a mootools 1.11 plugin which adds a pretty neat effect. It’s a clone of something seen on Panic Software’s Coda site, which in turn is very heavily inspired by a widget used in the iTunes Music Store. Similar jQuery solution.

Custom Checkbox with jQuery
This script provides you with the ability to customize the design of checkboxes in your web forms. You can use the default skin and the Safari skin which are provided with the package.

NicEdit
NicEdit is a Javascript/AJAX inline content editor to allow easy editing of web site content on the fly in the browser. It integrates into any site in seconds to make any element/div editable or convert standard textareas to rich text editing.

AJAX Instant Messenger
is a browser-based instant messaging client. It uses AJAX to create a near real-time IM environment that can be used in conjunction with community, intranet, and social websites. No refreshing of the page is ever needed for this "web application" to work, as everything is updated in real-time via JavaScript.

Mootools animated sidebar menu
This tutorial explains how to implement an animated menu using mootools. You can see how it works directly from mootools site.

LiveValidation
LiveValidation is a small open source javascript library built for giving users real-time validation information as they fill out forms. Not only that, but it serves as a sophisticated validation library for any validations you need to make elsewhere in your javascript, it is not just limited to form fields.

Creating a table with dynamically highlighted columns
There is a number of impressive things happening within this small area.

Tablecloth
Tablecloth is lightweight, easy to use, unobtrusive way to add style and behaviour to your html table elements. By simply adding 2 lines of code to your html page you will have styled and active tables that your visitors will love :) Try to mouseover or click on a table below.

Unobtrusive Table Actions Script
An attempt at writing an unobtrusive (and fast) script that adds commonly required "actions" to data tables. Can Zebra stripe the table. And supports row hover, column hover and cell hover effects

FancyForm
FancyForm is a powerful checkbox replacement script used to provide the ultimate flexibility in changing the appearance and function of HTML form elements. It’s easy to use and degrades gracefully on all older, non-supporting browsers.

Starbox
Starbox allows you to easily create all kinds of rating boxes using just one PNG image. The library is build on top of the Prototype javascript framework. For some extra effects you can add Scriptaculous as well. Check the demos below to see what Starbox is all about and read on for more information on how to customize your own Starboxes.

Style Your Website’s Search Field with JS/CSS
Continuing to provide unobtrusive solutions, CSSG is happy to present SearchField. It serves as a way to style your search field and add behavior without any additional JavaScript or modifications in your markup. It features plug & play onfocus and onblur behaviors and auto suggestion like you’ve never seen before.

The sliding Date-Picker
Due to the development of Qash.nl, a Dutch personal finance website full of cool javascript features, it’s somewhat quiet around here. But to keep you satisfied, we present the sliding date-picker. This element enables you to pick dates with a simple slider bar. By dragging the bar over the time-line, the dates change instantly.

Carousel
Prototype UI. Carousel are great to display a large set of data like images.

minishowcase
minishowcase is a small and simple php/javascript online photo gallery, powered by AJAX that allows you to easily show your images online, without complex databases or coding, allowing to have an up-and-running gallery in a few minutes.

Timeline
Timeline is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time-based events. It is like Google Maps for time-based information. Below is a live example that you can play with. Pan the timeline by dragging it horizontally.

Displaying source code with Ajax
The script fires off an Ajax request, gets the document the link points to, replaces the special characters and adds line numbers.

mooSlideBox 3
The mooSlideBox v3 is a small and slim ajax based extension or replacement of the common "lightbox" that can be found on nearly every page. This lightbox clone works in IE 6/7, Opera and Firefox.

Accessible News Slider
Accessible News Slider is a JavaScript plugin built for the jQuery library. It meets the accessibility requirements as outlined by WCAG 1.0.

jsProgressBarHandler (Dynamic Unobtrusive Javascript Progress/Percentage Bar)
jsProgressBarHandler is a Javascript based Percentage Bar / Progress Bar, inspired upon JS-code by WebAppers and CSS-code by Bare Naked App. Next to a structural rewrite of the WebAppers code, this javascript progress bar can easily be extended and tweaked just by setting a few parameters.

CNN Style Scrolling Ticker with the Marquee Toolkit Control
Besides scrolling the items from right to left, the liScroll plugin supports two additional features

mooSocialize - ajax based social bookmark widget
Enough of having to submit interesting articles by hand to your favorite social networks and newsgroups? Then this is for you. Based on ajax, this small widget allows to integrate many many bookmarks for every post on your blog, website etc.

CheckBoxList hover extender
“We created an AJAX Control Toolkit Extender that asynchronously calls a web service method (or a page method) to obtain the information displayed in the popup control, when the user hovers over an item.”

Cornerz
Bullet Proof Corners plugin for jQuery using Canvas/VML

Lightview
Lightview was built to change the way you overlay content on a website. Works on all modern browsers

lightWindow
Another script you can use to integrate lightboxes and online-galleries in your web-pages. This lightweight script supports 5 different types of Media: Pages, Inline Content, Media (movies, SWF, etc), images (galleries, single), External Websites (via IFrame)

DatePicker using Prototype and Scriptaculous
An unobtrusive and flexible date picker widget which uses Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries. 52 More Calendars and Date Picker Designs.

ModalBox
ModalBox is a JavaScript technique for creating modern modal dialogs or even wizards (sequences of dialogs) without using conventional pop-ups and page reloads.

Accordion v2.0
A lightweight accordion that is built with Scriptaculous, has vertical, horizontal and nested styles and works properly in every browser.

New unobtrusive dynamic flickr badge
A compact Flickr-Badge for presentation of Flickr-images with a navigation option.

13 Awesome Javascript CSS Menus
13 “fresh” JavaScript+CSS-based navigation menus in a brief overview. Among other things Slashdot Menu and Sexy Sliding Menu displayed below.

Further Ajax scripts

Maillist
An AJAX addon for your site, a Mail list. An email address can be submitted without having to reload the whole page.

ClickHeat
ClickHeat is an Ajax-powered visual heatmap of clicks on a page, showing hot and cold click zones. You can also use the heatmap generator outside ClickHeat for your own applications, using PHP and GD library.

Prototype UI
Prototype UI is an open-source configurable Modal Window system. The library allows you to add a window or a dialogue. Windows can have a shadow and be scannable; modal mode is available, and there is a window manager for Web OS behavior.

Protoload makes it easy to show the User what is going on.
Imagine a complex Rich Internet Application using different hidden requests and processes working side by side. Protoload makes it easy to show the User what is going on.

Step by Step - Show and explain visitors what your page has for them
You might have encountered interactive demos created with screencasting and screengrabbing software that explain an interface to users in a step-by-step manner. This is exactly what this script does for web sites.

FontSize slider
Enables visitors to define the font-size of the page.

Facebox
Facebox is a jQuery-based, Facebook-style lightbox which can display images, divs, or entire remote pages. It’s simple to use and easy on the eyes. Download the tarball, view the examples, then start enjoying the curves.”

Resources

Ajax Rain is a growing collection of Ajax / Javascript / DHTML examples and demos you can download for free. The site currently offers over 1000 examples.
14 Cool Mootools Scripts lists useful Ajax-scripts for the Mootools library.
45 Fresh jQuery Plugins offers a growing list of references for jQuery plugins and solutions.

Creating Reports with SQL Reporting Service and Visual Studio .NET

2008-03-19T00:04:00.001-07:00

Reporting service is basically a reporting server that uses SQL server as its backend database. All reports are deployed on the reporting server and from there, you can access any reports provided you have the correct permissions to access them. The basic idea is to have a single location where all reports are deployed, thereby providing a single point of access. This creates a very flexible environment to deploy your reports over the enterprise. The idea is very similar to Crystal Reports Enterprise Reporting.

I came across a very nice link that helped me understand how to create a report using Sql Reporting services and also accessing them through an ASP.Net application.

Please visit this link: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/reporting-services/AHCreatRepsAspNet.aspx to know more about it.

Please note that this article is not authored by me. I am only sharing it. All rights lie with the author of the article and also the solutions mentioned therein.

Regards,

Chiron Iyer

Display data with .NET's ListView control

2008-03-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Display data with .NET’s ListView control

· Date: March 11th, 2008

· Author: Tony Patton

· Category: .net

· Tags: HTML, Control, Data, Id, Title, ListView, GridView, Templates, ItemTemplate, LayoutTemplate

The GridView data control introduced in .NET 2.0 was an improvement over the DataGrid data control in .NET 1.x, but there were still drawbacks, especially with loading and paging through data. Microsoft recognized the shortcomings and addressed them with the introduction of the ListView control in .NET 3.5. With the ListView control, you can display data according to your needs.

Separation

Before diving into how to use the ListView control, it is worth mentioning an important distinction between the paging features in the ListView and GridView controls. The GridView control provides built-in support for paging through data; this functionality was not included in ListView. Paging support is now in its own control called DataPager, which I will discuss in next week’s column.

Presentation

The output generated by ASP.NET data controls is often quite messy. If you look at the code generated by the GridView and DataList controls, you will encounter myriad HTML TABLE markup.

A great feature of the ListView control is that you control its output via templates. The templates allow you to control every aspect of the rendering of data.

Templates

Templates control certain aspects of the ListView control’s generated HTML. Templates are required with ListView; they are optional with other data controls. These templates provide complete control over the output; that is, all aspects of the ListView’s generated markup are controlled via templates.

The following list offers details about the numerous templates available with ListView.

· AlternatingItemTemplate: Defines how alternating items are displayed.

· EditItemTemplate: Defines the presentation for an item when it is edited.

· EmptyDataTemplate: Specifies the content to display for empty individual items.

· EmptyItemTemplate: Specifies the content to display for empty group items.

· GroupSeparatorTemplate: Specifies the content to display between groups.

· GroupTemplate: Defines the content for groups. This template is a placeholder for the data displayed for individual group items (when data is grouped).

· InsertItemTemplate: Defines the presentation for a new item being inserted into the data set.

· ItemSeparatorTemplate: Defines the content to display between individual data items.

· ItemTemplate: Defines the data to display for single items.

· LayoutTemplate: Defines the main presentation features for the control. This root template contains placeholders that are replaced by what is defined by ItemTemplate and GroupTemplate.

· SelectedItemTemplate: Specifies the content to display when users select items.

While the templates provide various options, there is a certain way to put them to use. A key aspect of using the templates is specifying the appearance of the data bound to the control.

Placeholder

A placeholder tells ASP.NET where to place the ListView control’s output data when it is rendered. This may be accomplished with the <asp:PlaceHolder> control or by assigning an id value of itemPlaceHolder to a control.

The examples in this article use a simple XML file as a data source. This listing displays the contents of the XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<sites>

<site id="1" url="www.techrepublic.com" title="TechRepublic" />

<site id="2" url="www.cnet.com" title="CNET" />

</sites>

An XmlDataSource control is used to access this XML file. The following ASP.NET page ties the ListView control to the XmlDataSource:

<%@ Page %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

<head runat="server">

<title>ListView Example</title>

</head>

<body>

<form id="frmListViewExample" runat="server">

<asp:ListView ID="lvExample" runat="server" DataSourceID="XmlDataSource1">

<AlternatingItemTemplate>

<li style="">

id:<asp:Literal ID="litID" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("id") %>' /><br />

url:<asp:Literal ID="litURL" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("url") %>' /><br />

title:<asp:Literal ID="litTitle" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("title") %>' /><br />

</li>

</AlternatingItemTemplate>

<LayoutTemplate>

<ul>

<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="itemPlaceholder"></asp:PlaceHolder>

</ul>

</LayoutTemplate>

<EmptyDataTemplate>

No data was returned.

</EmptyDataTemplate>

<ItemTemplate>

<li style="">

id:<asp:Literal ID="litID" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("id") %>' /><br />

url:<asp:Literal ID="litURL" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("url") %>' /><br />

title:<asp:Literal ID="litTitle" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("title") %>' /><br />

</li>

</ItemTemplate>

<ItemSeparatorTemplate>

<hr>

</ItemSeparatorTemplate>

</asp:ListView>

<asp:XmlDataSource ID="XmlDataSource1" runat="server" DataFile="~/sites.xml" />

</form></body></html>

A few key elements of this example include the following:

· AlternatingItemTemplate and ItemTemplate display the actual data from the XML file. The templates use HTML list elements (<LI>) with Literal controls for each piece of data (id, title, and url). The Eval statements pull the specific data fields from the data source.

· LayoutTemplate defines the overall appearance of the ListView control’s output, as well as an unordered list for the output. The PlaceHolder control appears within the unordered list, but it will not appear in the output. The PlaceHolder control defines where the output data will appear — it is placeholder content rendered via ItemTemplate and AlternatingItemTemplate.

· ItemSeparatorTemplate displays a line between data items.

· If no data is returned, the text defined in the EmptyDataTemplate is displayed.

The HTML generated for the ListView sample is a drastic change from the GridView control, where the data is automatically rendered in an HTML table.

<ul>

<li style="">

id: 1 <br />

url: www.techrepublic.com <br />

title: TechRepublic

</li>

<hr>

<li style="">

id: 2<br />

url: www.cnet.com<br />

title: CNET<br />

</li>

</ul>

The alternate way to specify a data placeholder with the ListView control involves using any control and assigning it an id of itemPlaceHolder. Also, the control must have a runat property set to server. The ListView control in my previous example could have used the following syntax in its LayoutTemplate element without any change in the output.

<LayoutTemplate>

<ul>

<div id="itemPlaceHolder" runat="server" />

</ul>

</LayoutTemplate>

The key with the placeholder elements (regardless of the syntax) is that it does not appear in the rendered output — it is truly just a placeholder.

Another option

In addition to other data controls like GridView, DataList, and Repeater, the ListView control is another option for working with data. It provides a flexible layout model and powerful built-in data features. The ListView control also offers user interaction with data when combined with the DataPager control.

Do you use .NET 3.5 in your development work, or are you still working with previous versions? Do you think the ListView control meets developers’ data presentation needs? Share your experiences and thoughts with the Visual Studio Developer community.

Tony Patton began his professional career as an application developer earning Java, VB, Lotus, and XML certifications to bolster his knowledge.

Shared by Chiron Iyer

Botnets and Phishing..

2008-02-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

BOTNETS AND PHISHING: THE FACTS

In today’s business and consumer computing space, a financially-motivated “ecosystem” of multiple players exists. This ecosystem—complete with its own lucrative buying and selling “microeconomy”—is fueling a rapidly growing crime wave. Recently, malicious attacks involving tens of thousands of virus-infected PCs worldwide have targeted major organizations such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and UK online betting firm Blue Square. These computers—infected via back door programs and controlled through Internet Relay Chat (IRC) commands—are covertly hijacked with software bots, applications that serve as agents to surreptitiously collect information. This mass infection transforms compromised PCs into botnets, networks of machines that serve numerous fraudulent purposes. Botnets have been responsible for identity theft, spam, phishing, pay-per-click fraud, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, and information theft. These botnet ecosystems are not due to the actions of single creators (such as virus writers seking notoriety), but rather, a network of players co-existing in an organized underground buying and selling “microeconomy.” As a result of phishing via botnets, businesses and consumers are adversely impacted by tremendous financial losses, identity theft, and other damages. This white paper examines the existence of and interactions within the botnet ecosystem that enables phishing—a fraudulent type of spam—and the ensuing damage. This paper also provides information on how businesses and consumers can best protect themselves against these attacks,

as well as the benefits of implementing such actions.

To read more please click on this link : http://www.4shared.com/file/38464936/bab62669/trend_botnet_threats_and_solutions.html

This white paper has been released by Trend Micro. I am just sharing it to spread awareness about Botnets.

Regards,

K. Santosh Iyer

Project Co-ordinator

“Live Life to the Full for U only Live Once”

Please do visit our blogS at: http://22by7-eureka.blogspot.com

Http://22by7tech.Blogspot.com

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10 Free .NET Development Tools

2008-02-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

10 Free .NET Development Tools

10 Must-Have free tools for the .NET developer

Well, there are a lot more than 10, but here are some of my favorite free tools that I think every .NET developer should be using.

1: Nant

What is it?
Nant is a build tool. Build scripts are written that can perform tasks on your build server. Tasks are a-plenty, but typical tasks include the ability to build .NET solutions, run unit tests, copy files, make and delete directories and many more. In fact, with the ability to write custom tasks for Nant, there are plenty of possibilities.

Where can I find it?
Nant can be found at: http://nant.sourceforge.net/

2: CruiseControl.NET

What is it?
CruiseControl.NET is an Automated Continuous Integration server for .NET. CruiseControl.NET will monitor your source control repository and run your build scripts at set intervals, or whenever a file is checked in. CruiseControl.NET also provides a dashboard web application to view logs and status, plus a system tray application for all developers to install. This way, everyone knows who broke the build!

Where can I find it?
CruiseControl.NET can be found at:

http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Welcome+to+CruiseControl.NET

3: Nunit

What is it?
If you're not already unit testing your code, then you certainly should be. Nunit allows you to write unit tests in your .NET language against your code. The GUI is easy to use and gives a developer confidence to make changes to code. Nunit can be integrated into your build (Nant) so tests can be automated.

Where can I find it?
Nunit can be found at: http://www.nunit.org/

4: TestDriven.NET

What is it?
TestDriven.NET is a free add-in for Visual Studio that piggy-backs on Nunit. It adds quick access, right mouse click functionality to run your unit tests, showing the results in the output window. You can even debug your tests from the right mouse button.

Where can I find it?
TestDriven.NET can be found at: http://www.testdriven.net/

5: RegEx Designer.NET

What is it?
If you've written validation for your .NET sites, regular expressions can be a pain to get to grips with. The RegExDesigner allows you to test out your regular expressions and even generate .NET code from your regular expressions.

Where can I find it?
RegExDesigner.NET can be found at: http://www.sellsbrothers.com/tools/#regexd

6: FxCop

What is it?
FxCop is a code analysis tool that checks your code for standards conformance. GUI and command line is available and again can be automatically run via your build script.

Where can I find it?
FxCop can be found at: http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/fxcop/

7: NDoc

What is it?
NDoc generates class library documentation from .NET assemblies and the XML documentation files generated by the C# compiler Ndoc allows you to produce HTML or MSDN Style documentation.. Using Ndoc is as simple as filling in your .NET XML Comments.

Where can I find it?
Ndoc can be found at: http://ndoc.sourceforge.net/

8: NunitASP

What is it?
Like Nunit, NunitASP is for unit testing.But in the case of NunitASP, this is an Nunit extension that is used to test the code-behind pages o your ASP.NET applications. You can program tests to click buttons, select an array of web controls and other useful features.

Where can I find it?
NunitASP can be found at: http://nunitasp.sourceforge.net/

9: The MONO Project

What is it?

Mono is not just free software. The mono project attempts to make the .NET platform not only language interoperable, but platform independent. The mono website reads: Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell, the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

Mono isn't for everyone, but if you are targeting (for example) a unix system and wanting to stay with .NET. then this is the way to go.

Where can I find it?
Mono can be found at: http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

10: NCover

What is it?

It's all very well unit testing your code, but how much of it are you really testing? NCover highlights the areas of your code that are not being tested.

Where can I find it?
NCover can be found at: http://ncover.sourceforge.net/

Tips to help optimize web applications in relation to search engines

2008-02-06T23:48:00.000-08:00

A higher search ranking is what many website owners dream of. What they don't realise is that by optimising their site for the search engines, if done correctly, they can also optimise it for their site visitors. Ultimately this means more people finding your website and increased sales and lead generation. But are search engine optimisation and usability compatible? Aren't there trade-offs that need to be made between giving search engines what they want and giving people what they want? Read on and find out (although I'm sure you can guess the answer!)...

1. Keyword research carried out:

Before you even begin building your website, you should carry out keyword research to identify which keyword phrases your site should target. Using publicly available tools such as Wordtracker http://www.wordtracker.com/, you can discover which keywords are searched for the most frequently and then specifically target those phrases.Doing keyword research is also crucial for your site's usability. By using the same keywords in your website that web users are searching for in search engines, you'll literally be speaking the same language as your site visitors.For example, you might decide to target the phrase, "sell toys", as your website does in fact sell toys. Keyword research would undoubtedly show you that web users are actually searching for, "buy toys" (think about it - have you ever searched using the word, "sell", when you want to buy something?). By placing the phrase, "buy toys" on to the pages on your website, you'll be using the same words as your site visitors and they'll be able to find what they're looking for more easily.

2. 200 word minimum per page:

Quite simply, search engines love content - the more content there is on a page the easier it is for search engines to work out what the page is actually about. Search engines may struggle to work out the point of a web page with less than 200 words, ultimately penalising that page in the search rankings.In terms of usability, it's also good to avoid pages with very little content. A page with less than 200 words is unlikely to contain a large amount of information, so site visitors will undoubtedly need to click elsewhere to find more detailed information. Don't be afraid to put a reasonably large amount of information on to a page. Web users generally don't mind scrolling down anymore, and provided the page provides mechanisms to aid scanning (such as employing sub-headings - see point 6 below) it shouldn't be too difficult for site visitors to locate the information that they're after.

3. 100kb maximum HMTL size:

If 200 words is the minimum page content size, then 100kb is the maximum, at least in terms of HMTL file size. Anything more than this and search engines may give up on the page as it's simply too big for them.A 100kb HMTL file will take 20 seconds to download on a 56k dial up modem, used by three in four UK web users as of March 2004 (source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intc0504.pdf). Add on the time it takes for all the other parts of the page to download, such as images and JavaScript files, and you're looking at a highly un-user-friendly download time!

4. CSS used for layout:

The website of Juicy Studios http://www.juicystudio.com/ saw a six-fold increase in site visitors after switching from a table-based layout to a CSS layout. Search prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document There is a greater density of content compared to coding Using CSS for layout is also highly advantageous for usability, as it leads to significantly faster download times.

5. Meaningful page title:

If you know anything about search engine optimisation you'll know that search engines place more importance on the page title than any other attribute on the page. If the title adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.A meaningful page title also helps site visitors work out where they are, both within the site and the web as a whole. The page title is the first thing that loads up, often quite a few seconds before the content, so a descriptive, keyword-rich page title can be a real aid to help users orientate themselves.

6. Headings and sub-headings used:

Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings (in theory at least) summarise the content immediately below them. Headings are also incredibly useful for your human site visitors, as they greatly aid scanning. Generally speaking, we don't read on the web, we scan, looking for the information that we're after. By breaking up page sections with sub-headings that effectively describe the content beneath them, scanning becomes significantly easier.Do be sure not to abuse heading tags though. The more text you have contained in heading tags within the page, the less importance search engines assign to them.

7. Opening paragraph describes page content:

We've already established that search engines love content, but they especially love the first 25 words or so on each page. By providing an opening paragraph that adequately describes the content of the rest of the page (or the site if it's the homepage), you should be able to include your important keyword phrases in this crucial area.As web users, whenever we arrive at a web page the first thing we need to know is whether this page has the information that we're after. A great way to find this out is to scan through the first paragraph, which, if it sufficiently describes the page content, should help us out.

8. Descriptive Link Text :

Search engines place a lot of importance on link text. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say 'click here', search engines can't gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, 'widgets' then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, 'miserable failure'. So many people have linked to George Bush's bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush's bio appears top of the search rankings!As web users, we don't generally read web pages word-for-word - we scan them looking for the information that we're after. When you scan through text you can't take any meaning from the word 'click here'. Link text that effectively describes its destination is far easier to scan and you can understand the destination of the link without having to read its surrounding words.

9. Frames avoided:

Frames are quite an old-school technique, and although aren't as commonplace as they once were, do still rear up their ugly head from time to time. Using frames is one of the worst possible things you could do for your search engine ranking, as most search engines can't follow links between frames.Even if a search engine does index your pages and web users find you through a search engine, they'll be taken to one of the pages within the frame. This page will probably be a content page with no navigation (navigation is normally contained in a separate frame) and therefore no way to navigate to any other page on the site!Frames are also disadvantageous for usability as they can cause problems with the back button, printing, history and bookmarking. Put simply, say no to frames!

10. Quality content provided:

This may seem like a strange characteristic of a search engine optimised website, but it's actually crucial. Search engines, in addition to looking at page content, look at the number of links pointing in to web pages. The more inbound links a website has, all other things being equal, the higher in the search rankings it will appear.By providing creative, unique and regularly updated content on your website, webmasters will want to link to you as doing so will add value to their site visitors. You will also be adding value to your site visitors.ConclusionOptimising your website for both search engines and people needn't be a trade-off. With this much overlap between the two areas, you should easily be able to have a website that web users can find in the search engines, and when they do find it, they can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk/ ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article25881.html

22by7

2008-01-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

22by7 is a Bangalore based innovative venture founded by experienced, talented and highly qualified group of IT professionals.

22by7 's aim is to develop & deploy cost-efficient and tailor-made software tools which enable businesses to be managed effectively with high levels of productivity

22by7 also provides IT solutions to Enterprises in Infosec & Storage domains thus ensuring business continuity and ability to recover from unforeseen disasters quickly.

Website: http://22by7.in

Blog: http://22by7-eureka.blogspot.com/