Before Ant, building and deploying web applications required a series of scripts or manual processes, which often led to mistakes. Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is similar to Make but is implemented using the Java language, requires the Java platform, and is best suited to building Java projects. However, that doesn’t mean it is restricted to Java projects. I use Ant increasingly for all my web development projects as it is an integral part of Eclipse, my IDE of choice. It makes building applications and releasing them across different servers far more efficient and less problematic.
Tags: Apache Ant, automated build, best practices, build scripts, immediate processing, Java, JavaScript, local development server, similar build tool, SQL, The Definitive Guide, user acceptance testing server, web applications, web development, XML, Yahoo
PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and is a worldwide security standard assembled by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). The PCI security standards are technical and operational requirements that were created to help organizations that process card payments prevent credit card fraud, hacking and various other security vulnerabilities and threats. The standards apply to all organizations that store, process or transmit cardholder data – with guidance for software developers and manufacturers of applications and devices used in those transactions. A company processing, storing, or transmitting cardholder data must be PCI DSS compliant.
Tags: Adobe ColdFusion, American Express, anti-virus software, Applications, architecture, Authentication, BlueDragon, Code, ColdFusion, ColdFusion Administrator, company processing, compliance, control measures, Data Security Standard, database server, Databases, Discover Financial Services, encryption, firewall, HTTP, Java, JCB International, Manitoba, Mastercard Worldwide, Payment Card Industry, Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, payment card processing, Payment Processors, PCI DSS, public networks, Railo, raw processing, RDBMS, regulations, secure, secure systems, security, Security Standards Council, security systems, Server Side, software developers, software releases, SQL, SSC, the Council, Visa, Visa Inc ., web application, web application developers, web applications, web code, Web Servers
An increasingly popular technique among websites and in particular, blogs, is the idea of making URLs search engine friendly, or safe, on the premise that doing so will help search engine optimisation. By removing the obscure query string element of a URL and replacing it with keyword rich alternatives, not only makes it more readable for a human being, but also the venerable robots that allow our page content to be found in the first place.
Tags: .htaccess, All, Apache, ColdBox, ColdFusion, Fusebox, HTTP, httpd.conf, ISAPI, Microsoft, mod_rewrite, New Brunswick, None, PHP, search engine, search engine optimisation, search engine robots, search engine safe, url, URL rewriting, USD, web applications
Last weekend I attended Barcamp Brighton 3. For the uninitiated like me, a BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.
Tags: 1d, 2d, Aral Balkan, Barcamp, barcodes, Brighton, camera, datamatrix, iphone, Jeremy Keith, Jerome Ribot, macro, Mark Wudden, maxicode, Miscellaneous, Mobile, mobile tagging, open source technologies, phone, presentation, QRcode, Rob Douglas, social protocols, Tantek Celik, web applications, web-gliterati
Over the past few weeks, subversive elements in the international arena have decided that attacking websites is a fun thing to do! The online world has become the new battle ground between nations vying to de-stabilise rivals. This may seem all very Jack Bauer, but we are increasingly seening ‘SQL injection attacks’ eminating from countries such as Russia, China and North Korea. Of course, that doesn’t mean our countries aren’t doing the same in return, but we only see the results from foreign-based attacks.
Tags: attack, C#, China, ColdFusion, cross-site scripting, hack, hacking, malicious web users, North Korea, online world, Russia, SQL, SQL Injection, T, url, web applications, XSS
The Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML, and AJAX. The library sits comfortably amongst its peers, which, amongst many others, include Prototype, jQuery and Mootools. Arguably it can be said that the YUI library is the king among the JavaScript and CSS-libraries. With a vast number of well documented examples and near 100% compatibility amongst modern browsers, it would be difficult to find a comparable library.
Tags: AJAX, animation, api, Berkeley Software Distribution, Books, BSD license, cascading style sheets, cross browser, CSS, Dan Wellman, DHTML, document object model, DOM, HTML, HTML & XHTML, interactive, interactive web applications, JavaScript, king, library, mootools, pains, Publications, rich, The Yahoo! User Interface Library, UI, User Interface Library, web applications, Yahoo, Yahoo user interface, YUI Library
Mike Chambers announced at the onAIR tour London event last week that he would be releasing an electronic version of the Adobe AIR for JavaScript Developers pocket book, by the publishers O’Reilly, under Creative Commons licence terms. Well, good to his word, you can download the pocket reference from the Adobe onAIR website.
Tags: Adobe, Adobe Integrated Runtime, AIR, command line tools, Developer Library, developers, Development, development technology, HTML, HTML & XHTML, JavaScript, London, Mike Chambers, O'Reilly, official guide, pocket guide, web applications, web developers
Adobe Integrated Runtime is more than just hot air, it traverses the previously unexplored space that exists between the Web and desktop applications.
Up until very recently, the void between the Web and the desktop seemed like a schism that could not be crossed. But since AIR’s 1.0 release in February this year, a whole host of other applications are emerging to compete with AIR in the single site browser space.
Tags: 3D graphics, Adobe, Adobe Integrated Runtime, AIR, AJAX, Alex Graveley, api, auto-software updates, Bubbles, Chris Toshok, clever little tools, control device, default web browser, desktop applications, desktop computing, facebook, Flash, Flash Player, Flash player for development, Fluid, Google, graphics hardware, HTML, Internet Applications, JavaScript, Linux, Mac, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Mozilla, Mozilla Prism, operating system, Pyro, runtime, single site browsers, site-specific applications, SSB, web applications, Web Browser, Web browsers, web browsing activity, web resource, web resources, XML, Yahoo
Since the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) was released at the end of February, we now have a stable platform on which to build desktop applications with our existing web skills. A number of people have already started and the Adobe AIR Marketplace is filling with AIR applications by the day.
So what is the big deal?
Tags: ActionScript, Adobe, Adobe Integrated Runtime, Adobe Labs, AIR, AJAX, Analytics, api, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, bbc, Benjamin Dobler, ColdFusion, collaboration tool, designer, Desktop, desktop applications, ebay, Flash, Flex, Google, HTML, HTML & XHTML, Internet Applications, internet-ready, iphone, Kuler, less developer-centric tools, Mac, Marco Kaiser, Microsoft Vista, Nicolas Lierman, operating systems, Picnik image editor, RichFLV, Runtime ( AIR ), SearchCoders, social-interaction tool, Tweetr, Twitter, web applications, Web Browser, web screenshot tool, web skills, Web technologies, web-based suite, web-hosted application, WebKut, XML
Rich Internet Applications are just the beginning. A key trend taking place throughout the Web industry is the urgency to integrate disparate systems and software tools to reduce costs, increase developer productivity, reduce the need for manual processing and intervention in transactions, and decrease time to market. To achieve these objectives, organisations have endorsed the adoption of standards-based systems combined with the migration to Web Services and Service Orientated Architecture. This has led to a requirement to create a consistent and intuitive interface to applications, data and services. The immediate goal of these efforts is to provide simpler, quicker and more efficient access and processing of information.
Tags: Adobe, AIR, Apple, data, disparate systems, Flash, Flex, future, gears, Google, HTML, integrated applications, Internet Applications, Internet Applications Rich Internet Applications, JavaFX, LinkedIn, manual processing, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, performance solutions, quicktime, RIA, Rich Internet Applications, SaaS, Service Orientated Architecture, services, Silverlight, soa, Software as a Service, software orientated architecture, software tools, sun, Web 2.0, web applications, Web industry, web services, Web Standards, XAML, XML