Web Site Performance Optimization

Web site performance optimization is the process of using various tools and techniques to reduce the size of web pages in order to minimize the load time, utilizing the bandwidth. This is one of the most critical success factors of any web site or application. There are so many technologies introduced to optimize the web application in the development time including AJAX. This article will give you an introduction to optimize your web page even with lesser technical skills, using simple tools without altering its basic architecture.

Getting Started

Before you proceed you have to prepare the development environment. First you have to setup the tool required and identify the skills required to the process.

Tools

You will be using the latest version of Mozilla Firefox browser and YSlow add-on installed on it. Before you install YSlow you have to install Firebug add-on on Firefox. YSlow is an add-on for Firefox developed by Yahoo which can be used to identify the performance level of the web pages.

Knowledge And Skills

In order to optimize the performance of your page you have to have basic knowledge of HTML, JAVAScrip and CSS. But in this process you don’t have to alter any code which already written, yet you will have to re-structure them.

Analyze

As the first step you have to identify the current state of your web site. For that open your web page in Firefox and click the YSlow icon at the right bottom of the browser window. It will pop up another window and there you can click the “Grade” button. (Choose rule sets according to your web site) Once you click, it will display the performance grade of your web site along with the overall performance score. Furthermore down the window, it will display grade for each sub-section. In addition to that there will be another tab displaying the size of each component of your web page and another tab for statistics including caching state and HTTP requests. This will give you a basic over all idea about the current state of your web site and where the performance hits are. After that you can solve the identified problems one by one.

Below section will explain the step by step process of optimizing a web page.

Performance Optimization Process

Optimize Page Content

Page content plays a big role when it comes to the performance. Pages with smaller file size will have the maximum performance. Therefore your main goal should be to make it smaller as possible. Any web page will have two main contents, which are hypermedia and text including HTML CSS and JS.

Hypermedia: Basic rule is reducing the size as much as possible. Especially for images you can reduce the resolution and use a compression like JPEG. Avoid using HTML sizing for images. If you need to optimize the performance in a greater scale you can use image Sprite. It will minimize the HTTP request for the external images.

HTML/CSS/JS: In the development time of the web page the HTML codes must be highly readable. Therefore developers keep spaces, comments, line breaks and indentation to increase the readability. But when it comes to the run time they will be a performance hit because it will increase the file size. In order to reduce the size those unnecessary characters should be removed. For that there are various HTML compressors out there. If you need to compress many HTML files at a time, you can use HTML Compress 5.5 PC application. In addition to that there are various online HTML compressors as well. You will observe, after the compression HTML, CSS and JS files are formed in to one single line or very fewer lines in the source code. At the same time you will be able to observe this will reduce the file size by around 10%. This process generally called as minifying the code.

Optimize External CSS/JS

If you have so many external JS and CSS files linked to the web page they need to pack in one single file for each type. This will reduce number of HTTP request for the external resources. Pack all the JS to one file and add the link in the bottom of the web page. Do the same for CSS and link them at the top of web page.

Now you have reduced the size of Hypermedia, HTML, CSS and JS. In addition to that you have minimized the amount of external HTTP requests as well.

Compression

After minimizing the size of hypermedia, HTML, CSS and JS codes by restructuring them, you can enforce compression to further reduce the size of them. This can be enabled by your web server. Once you enable the compression (in most cases its GZip) web server will compress the page before seeding it to the user over HTTP. GZip compression can reduce the file size in greater ratio, more than 75%. This will improve the performance of web page drastically and will be help full to utilize the bandwidth of the web server as well.

Before Compression

web-site-performance-optimization-before-compression-9656962

After Compression

web-site-performance-optimization-after-compression-3966890

By pasting below code in . htaccess file you can enable GZip in your web server.

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml

If you don’t have access to .htaccess file you can use this code in every .php page header.

Caching

Finally you can enable caching support from your web server. Once you enable caching your browser will store most of the common content in your web page locally. Due to that browser can load that content without calling the web Server and this will save the bandwidth and reduce the HTTP request drastically.

You can control the caching by pasting below code in the .htaccess file in your web server.

ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2592000 ExpiresByType text/css A2592000 ExpiresByType image/gif A604800 ExpiresByType image/png A604800 ExpiresByType image/jpeg A604800 ExpiresByType image/ico A604800

Now you have completed the process of optimizing your web page. You may run the YSlow test again and feel the improvement of the performance.

Tip: WordPress users can use wpCompressor and wp-minify plug-ins to enforce GZip compression and reduce external CSS and JS calls without much effort.

References

  • How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression. (2007, April). Retrieved April 2010, from betterexplained.com: http://betterexplained.com/articles/how-to-optimize-your-site-with-gzip-compression/

See Also

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Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended – Getting Started

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended is an industry leading, powerful graphics editing & designing software for pixel based images. Having developed by Adobe Systems, the software was initially released in 1990. After the 7th version, the product was renamed as “CS – Creative Suite”. The latest version is “CS4 Extended” which was released in April, 2009. CS4 & CS4 Extended versions came with various features such as, content-aware scaling, fluid canvas rotation, auto-blending, enhanced raw image processing, better printing capabilities and many more. But the most significant feature is the support it provides for working with 3D objects. In addition, these two versions are the first to introduce 64bit processing support, which results in better memory usage than in 32bit versions. The next version, CS5 is scheduled to be released in April 2010 for Photoshop as well as for the other Adobe CS software such as Flash, Dreamweaver, Premier Pro, etc. As revealed by Adobe, this new version of Photoshop is equipped with great features such as content-aware filling, image re-composition & completion, patch-match, etc. In this tutorial Photoshop CS4 Extended version for Microsoft Windows will be explained. However, if you’re unable to use this version due to any reason, you can use an older CS version including the 7th one. Although you may not be able to do all the things that can be done with the newer versions, you can still use the most of the recent versions to get your work done. And even if you are not a PS* fan, you’ll still find this to be useful, since similar kind of products are intended come with similar features up to some extent.

*Both terms “Photoshop” & “Ps” will be used interchangeably throughout the article.

Getting Started

What do you want to do?

First of all, you must find the answer to this question because how effectively you can use PS will be decided depending on your requirement. More specifically, you should clarify whether you need PS to work with or not. For an example, if you have to work with a lot of shapes, lines, illustrations & such things (which are called vector graphics), then you may use Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw or Inkscape etc. rather than Photoshop. (Inkscape is a good open source alternative for vector graphics.) This is because those applications are designed specifically to work with vector graphics whereas Photoshop is not so. Photoshop is basically appropriate to design & edit pixel based images.

Does it suit my work?

Think of the range of the work you need to get done. If you just want to do relatively simple things, you can use Microsoft Paint or an open source alternative such as GIMP rather than going for PS. Because, you must consider whether you would use a simple &/or easily reachable software or a highly expensive product (though powerful) such as Photoshop to create a simple birthday card (at the time I’m writing this, the retail price of Photoshop CS4 Extended version is US$999).

It’s just a tool

This is a very important thing that you must keep in mind, when working with Photoshop (this is applicable to any technology you would use, indeed). Though it’s a nice piece of software, in the end the output will depend on your talent. Hence, you must try to put some degree of creativity in to your work.

Installation

Currently, Photoshop supports only Microsoft Windows & Apple Mac OS X platforms. Following are some of the minimum requirements for the installation of PhotoshopCS4 Extended version on the windows platform, as recommended by Adobe.

  • Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or later
  • 1.8GHz or faster processor
  • 512MB of Ram (1GB recommended)
  • 1GB free hard-disk space for the installation & additional space required during the installation.
  • 1024×768 (1280×800 recommended) display with 16-bit video card

If your computer has a multi-core processor, you will feel better. From my personal experience, it’s better to have at least 1GB of memory, if you’re going to work with a lot of effects & higher resolutions. For the program files (including the additional software), it takes only about half of the required disk space. The rest is taken up during the installation process. It will be better if you have a larger monitor (at least 17”), since there is enough space & higher resolution that will be helpful to improve the quality.

Preparation

Before start working in Photoshop, we may do two things.

  • Identify the workspace
  • Setting up the preferences

Identify the workspace

adobe-photoshop-cs4-extended-screenshot-9589160 Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended – Screenshot

After the installation, open the application and you will see a similar interface as shown above. Here is a little introduction to the environment, in which you’re going to work.
*If you have uninstalled CS4 Extended version before, you might see that, there is an option in the un-installation process as “Remove Application Preferences”. Before uninstalling, if you had customized the PS preferences, workspace & other settings, & if you didn’t check that option to remove the preferences at the un-installation, you might get a little different workspace than the default view shown above.

Application Bar

Though it has a new look, it contains some of the already known, common features. Therefore it makes reaching those tools from a single location easier.

Workspace Switcher

This is a new useful feature. It automatically & very quickly modifies the workspace according to the user’s choice. This includes options such as, “Basic, Advanced 3D, Video, Web” & more. As the name implies, when the user selects one of those options, the PS workspace is automatically changes according to the selected option. Mostly, these modifications are done regarding the palettes (by default, placed at the right). For an example, if you choose “Typography”, the workspace will be modified by showing up the palettes such as Character, Paragraph & Styles, which allow you to do modification to the text in your documents such as change the font attributes, setup the alignments & apply various effects. If you have worked with any older version of PS, probably you might have faced the problem of reaching the necessary palettes & other tools to get your work done. For example, if we had to paint something & the Brush palette is closed or not popped up, then in the old way, we will have to choose it from the Window menu or take it in to the front to be visible. Since this new enhanced feature offers us almost all the necessary tools that are needed to do a specific task, we don’t have to repeatedly go looking for it & get bored. Also, there is an option at the end of this menu as “Save Workspace”. This allows us to save the workspace we customized as desired. This may increase the ease of using the software further. Choose different options & observe the changes happen in the environment & their features. The default workspace is “Essential”. So for now, you may leave it as it is.

Main Menu

As you might have seen in most application software, PS has a main menu bar which includes menus for almost all the tools we need to work with. As usual, there are shortcut keys to most of them.

Options Bar

As you can see in the above screen shot, the option bar is placed by default below the main menu bar. As the name implies, this area includes the options related to the tool you have currently selected. Choose several tools from the tools palette. You may notice that, some options are unique & some options are common for several tools.

Tools Palette

This includes various tools to work in PS which we use very often at work. There are single tools & grouped tools. You can identify the grouped tools by a little triangle at the lower right corner of those tools. To see & choose the hidden tools of the grouped tools, right click on the tool. Then you’ll be able to view the related sub tools.

Other Palettes

Except the Tools palette, the rest of the palettes are usually placed or to be placed at the right side. While we use the tools in the tools palette to do various tasks such as drawing, painting, cutting & typing, the rest of the palettes include a lot of options to make adjustments to those work.

The Document Window

His window consists of the working area with some other features such as the zoom level, document size etc. at the bottom. We can have our opened documents docked in one window in a tabbed manner or undock them as we desire.

Setting up the Preferences

Here, we’re going to look in to some configurations in PS CS4 Extended, & modify them as necessary. Setting up the configuration to meet our needs will make it easier efficient to use the software once we’ve started working.
First, open Photoshop & choose Edit > Preferences > General from the main menu (Ctrl + K). Now, you must have got the dialogue window as below.

preferences-dialogue-window-_-general-tab-_-a-screenshot-6105573

Preferences Dialogue Window – General Tab

I feel it’s better to introduce some options displayed here, which might be useful to you so that you can adjust them as you need. Here are some options appear in the “General tab”.

Auto-Update Open Documents

Assume that, you need to work on the same image in both PS & some other application (GIMP for an example) at the same time. When you did some changes to the image in GIMP & saved them, you may have to close & re-open the same image in PS to see those changes. But, if you enable this option, you won’t need to do so. Meaning, when you saved some changes to the image in GIMP, you just have to come back (focus) to PS. You’ll see that, the changes you made in GIMP are updated in the same image without having to re-open. So, this is a really useful option, if you have to work on the same image in two places at the same time. By default, this option is disabled (not checked) in PS CS4 Extended version.

Zoom with Scroll Wheel

Check this option if you need to zoom using the scroll wheel of the mouse. I think this is the easiest to way to do so. If you enable this option, you won’t be able to scroll the window up & down using the scroll wheel as it is in the normal way. Hence to do it, you must hold down the Alt key while you’re scrolling using the wheel. If you want to get an even zoom ratio, you may also hold down the Shit key (as well as Alt) while you’re zooming in or out using the scroll wheel. But, if you use the zoom tool in the tools palette, you will always get an even value for zooming. This option is also disabled by default.

Zoom Clicked Point to Center

Not checked by default. When this option is checked, whenever you click on some location of an image to zoom, that point becomes the center of the view. This is useful when you have to zoom in to a large value because, without this option you might have to scroll to the required location since it might be not appeared in the viewable area.

History Log

Assume that, you did a really good work but you forgot how you did it when you want to do it again. If it’s a simple work, then you may find it out easily. But, it’s not that easy when it comes to a lot of drawings, text, effects, etc. as you’ll have to spend a lot of time & effort to find how you did it. This option is very useful in a context like that. Check the option, & then you’ll be allowed to choose one of three options. If you just want to store the editing details for your own purpose, just select the option called “Text File”. If you’re selecting that option for the first time, you will be asked for a location to save the file.   Under the History Log, there is another option called “Edit Log Items”. By default the “Sessions Only” option is selected. It just stores the details of opening & closing of PS & each file with date, time details. If you select the second option called “Concise”, the session details & the data appearing in the “History palette” will be saved. The last option “Detailed” allows saving all of the previously mentioned details as well as the details appearing in the “Actions palette”. This option is useful to you, if you need to track the complete history.

a-history-log-file-with-detailed-tracking-_-a-screenshot-2399577

A History Log File (With Detailed tracking)

Now, select the Performance tab from the left side and the Preference options will be displayed. There are some important configurations that directly reflect the effect at work.

preferences-dialogue-window-performance-tab-a-screenshot-5184605

Preferences Dialog Window – Performance Tab

Memory Usage

Here you can see the available free RAM capacity from the total RAM capacity installed in your computer. “Ideal Range” is the suggested RAM capacity to assign to Photoshop by itself. Percentagewise it is usually around 70%. You can assign the suggested value of RAM or a value decided by yourself using the “Let Photoshop Use” text box or by dragging the slider. This is a critical setting. It’s better, if you assign at least 50% of the available RAM. When you’re working with a lot of images &/or with higher resolutions you will be required more memory. Anyway, it’s  not a good idea to assign the entire available RAM to PS.

History & Cache

“History States” is to specify a number of history states to appear in the History palette, that can be used later to go back to some points of your working. “Cache Levels” helps to speed up the redraw of images with higher resolutions. The default value is 4. To disable caching, select the value 1. However, don’t disable this option. A value less than 4 is suited to work with lot of layers but with a small number of pixels. A higher value is good to work with large documents, but with fewer layers.

Scratch Disks

Works like the virtual memory of an operating system. When there is no enough RAM  memory to work, it will free some memory from the specified drive/s &/or from the partition/s. PS detects the internal disk partitions & list them here as you can specify them. Usually the disk partition, on which the operating system is installed, is selected as the primary scratch disk by PS automatically.  You might not able deactivate it from the list, but you can assign another partition as you desire. Adobe recommends implementing the scratch disks in a different drive/partition than the one, where the operating system uses the free disk space as its virtual memory. This is because if the operating system’s virtual memory uses the free disk space, where both virtual memory & the PS scratch disk are at one place, then if there is no sufficient free disk space to be allocated by the PS scratch disks, it will affect the performance PS critically. If you get the error message from PS as “The scratch disk is full”, then you will have to free some disk space by deleting PS temporary files. You may find them named in a format as “~PST####.tmp”, where “####” is a number. If you don’t want to free the disk space manually, you can use “Windows Disk Cleanup” or similar tool to do so.

GPU Settings

CS4 & CS4 Extended versions include this feature. GPU means the “Graphics Processing Unit” of the graphics display card installed in your computer. GPU improves the screen redraw instead of using the main processor of the computer for that. “Screen redraw” means, redisplay something on the screen. This is required when some modifications are made to the current drawing of the screen. The support of GPU for OpenGL (v 2.0), 126MB of RAM & Shader Model 3.0. Otherwise, this option might have disabled. This feature is useful to work smoothly while     zooming, rotating & working with 3D objects in CS4 Extended version, etc. These preferences might be very useful to anyone, who is going to work with Photoshop CS4 Extended version. Except Other than these, you can find more options in the preferences. You can check them out by yourself if you want. This article focuses only on some configurations, which are critical to the performance.

So, this is your time. Check these out & you’ll be ready to get started. Whenever you want to set the default settings (such as preferences, workspace, etc) hold down the Ctrl, Alt & Shift keys as soon as you open the PS. This must be done before the initialization process at the startup. If you did it correctly, you will be asked to delete the current Photoshop settings file. Click “Yes”. Then the software will opened with default settings configured.

References

  • (2010, April). Retrieved from adobe.com: http://www.adobe.com
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4 – What’s New, Adobe Systems. (2008). Adobe Systems.
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended Workspace. (2008). Adobe Systems.
  • Dan Moughamian, Wiley Publishing. (2009). Adobe Photoshop CS4 Bible, Stacy Cates.
  • Morris, T. (2008). Adobe Photoshop CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts

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iPhone OS 4.0 With Multitasking

iPhone OS 4.0 will be released  for iPhone 3GS and third generation iPods later this  summer. The new OS 4.0 upgrade will be available for iPad this fall. It has packed around 100 new features for iPhone 3GS something like multitasking, ability to create folders, better mail client, iBook and iAd. But, not all features are compatible with all devices like multitasking is not available for iPhone 3G and earlier iPod touch versions.

New Features in OS 4.0

iphone-os-4-0-with-multitasking-9215808

Multitasking

iPhone’s multitasking solution allow several third party apps to run in the background while the user working with another application. It is handled with a simple task switcher by double click the home button. When click the home button, it will show a list of currently running applications. You have to select the application and it will switch to it. The system gives preferences to running tasks and less preferences to others as needed. It allows the user to pause some applications, while enabling some special service to allow some types of tasks such as answering calls or playing music on the background. Apple has listed seven kinds of services that will give the user the kind of multitasking without choking the system

Background Audio: This can be done apps like Pandora, where user can listen to music while doing another task.

Voice over IP – VoIP: Before multitasking implemented, VoIP applications were limited as they were not active all the time to receive incoming calls

Background Location: There are two kinds of applications—turn-by-turn direction GPS applications like TomTom would run this service in the background to tracks where you are, while you are working on another app, and social networking application like Loopt.

Push notifications: This was already a background task, but it has been expanded in OS 4.0.

Local notifications: These notifications are generated by the iPhone applications and can be sent between the applications. If something important happened in background, a notification will popup whatever the app you are using at the time. This is an effective way of keep tracking between the applications.

Task completion: This will allow applications to finish the tasks started before switching to another application. It pops up an alert when the app task is done, even when you are using some other apps

Fast app switching: This will allow currently running applications to available instantly rather than start them up each time. All the application can now be frozen in full, so when you reopen them, they are restored exactly to the previous state.

iBook

The iBook, which was only available for Apple’s iPad, is now available for iPhone, now you can take your books with you wherever you go as oppose to iPad. iBook now available for iPod Touch as well. Currently it is only available in United States only as it has some complexity of geographic distribution deals with publishers.

iAd

iAd, Apple’s newest interactive advertisement platform. According to Jobs, it offers ‘interaction and emotions’ which is middle of where web ads and TV ads to the app users. Those ads are going to be served without leaving the current app you are working on, and then you can close the ad at any time and return to the app where you left it. It offers variety of interactive options like sounds and video clips and games within the advertisement. According to Jobs, one ad every three minutes would lead to 1 billion ad impression per day over Apple’s 100 million devices. Apple will host the ads and developers will receive 60% of iAd revenue. The iAd is based on HTML5.

New Mail App

Unified inbox with multiple email exchange accounts with fast inbox switching with a few taps. It allows users to open attachments using specific applications. Organized by thread and groups together messages by date.

Application Folders

For better organizing, OS 4.0 has a folder feature. Now, user can create folders according to App Store category, and users can rename it as well.

Game Center

Apple’s going to start a centralized gaming service such as Xbox Live to connect players online and the scores can be viewed anyone on the network. This service will be available by the end of this year.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support

This is another feature taken from the iPad. Now, iPhone 4.0 support Bluetooth Keyboard.

Custom Backgrounds

Now you can choose different backgrounds for your iPhone 4 and not just for the lockscreen

Enterprise Features

  • Better data protection: Encrypted emails and PIN coded attachments
  • Mobile device management: Lets IT managers to deploy iPhone and manage them remotely
  • Wireless app distribution. Companies can push out custom apps over the air instead of relying on iTunes sync.
  • Support for multiple exchange accounts
  • Support for Exchange server 2010
  • SSL VPN support from Juniper and Cisco

Disadvantages

There are many hardware compatibility issues when migrating to iPhone OS 4.0. You cannot have multitasking features in your iPhone 3G and if you want to have that experience, you have to buy a new iPhone with OS 4.0. Even in 3GS model, it does not have a front camera yet, so you cannot take video calls nor do video chat though it is a multimedia phone. These features are mandatory and people are expecting them on upcoming editions. iPhone OS 4.0 does not support Java. There are number of free Java applications available all over the net but you cannot use them. They have HTML5 as an alternative for Flash. This might be a good idea but you cannot watch flash videos or browse flash sites. Only few sites support HTML5 Currently such as YouTube.

Competitors

While Apple is trying to implement the multitasking, the windows mobile has implemented it years ago. From the services and enterprise level, Windows mobile is in a leading level around the globe. There are no free things in Apple, if you want a book, you have to buy it from iBook, and for music, you need pay and download it from iTunes. But in windows mobile, there are large number of sites and lot of applications available for free. People love Apple, because of its multimedia features, and it has a great support for gaming. But the future of the Apple’s stability is depends on what are the enterprise level services it offers, how much it supports for free and open source software, and how much its applications support world wide. Most of its features limited to United States. Even though it has many wonderful features, not everyone can get benefit out of them.

After all, there is a question mark in my mind. Will iPhone OS 4.0 be able beat its competitors even with these upgrades?

References

  • (2010, April). Retrieved April 2010, from media.techworld.com: http://media.techworld.com/cmsdata/products/3219758/iPhone%20OS%204.jpg
  • Iiphone OS 40 All The New Features. (2010, April). Retrieved April 2010, from Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5512635/iphone-os-40-all-the-new-features
  • iPhone OS 4.0: Multitasking arrives (live blog). (2010, April). Retrieved April 2010, from Cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20001876-37.html
  • New iphone os 4 features. (2010, April). Retrieved April 2010, from The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/08/new-iphone-os-4-features_n_530401.html#s79663

OpenID | Notes Of Genius

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OpenID is a decentralized standard identity system for authenticating users with the same identity on different web based services. It is like an internationally accepted driver’s license for web. You can use a single username and password all over the web instead of maintaining number of logins. OpenID simply eliminates the need for number of logins on internet. OpenID identity is actually not… 

What Is OpenID?

OpenID is a decentralized standard identity system for authenticating users with the same identity on different web based services. It is like an internationally accepted driver’s license for web. You can use a single username and password all over the web instead of maintaining number of logins. OpenID simply eliminates the need for number of logins on internet.

openid-4251100

OpenID identity is actually not a username and password system. Technically, they are URLs. Something likes this,

  • http://claimid.com/username
  • http://username.myopenid.com
  • http://me.yahoo.com/username

You have to give your credentials to the OpenID provider website, and the provider is responsible to notify the other sites that you are who you claim to be. After you have claimed the authentication and authorization, you can use the website as a registered logged in user. Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect are some examples of OpenID. The main difference in the OpenID is a single company does not control it. There are number of companies you can choose to obtain an OpenID.

To use the OpenID credentials, the website should have the OpenID login feature, and if you can find the OpenID logo somewhere on the webpage, you can use your OpenID to login. This form then connects with the OpenID client library.

Behind The Scene

There are two parties involved in an OpenID transaction, Consumer and Provider. A Consumer (also called a Relying Party) is an OpenID enabled web site. A Provider plays the role as a registrar. It allows users to create and manage OpenID URLs and accounts, and authenticates the user to Consumers. This is an open source framwork service, and anyone can be a Consumer or a Provider without any cost of licensing fees. You can find a large number of web applications allow users to log in using the OpenID credentials and number of sites have become the service Providers all over the web.

When a user tries to log into a Consumer site using OpenID, the Consumer site contacts the Provider to verify the user’s credentials. The user may be redirected to the Provider and asked to sign in using Provider password. When its done successfully, the user will automatically redirected to the Consumer site with granted access as a registered user.

Getting Started With OpenID

To use OpenID, you should have an OpenID account with one of the many providers on the web. If you have an account with Google, Yahoo, AOL, LiveJernal, Blogger, Flickr, MySpace or any other common big name OpenID  providers, then you already have an OpenID. If you want, you can have an OpenID account with some dedicated OpenID providers, such as MyOpenID or ClaimID. This is called as ‘home base’. Even if you choose any of the services, you’ll get a unique URL that you can use around the web.

Getting Used To OpenID

The main confusion of using OpenID is, it is not a normal username and password but it is usually a URL something looks like this: http://username.providername.com.

To log into an OpenID enabled Consumer site

  • Find the OpenID logo somewhere on the web page
  • Paste your OpenID URL in the provided text field and press Enter
  • You’ll be asked to sign into you account back at your ‘home base’. You have to provide the username and the password to the ‘home base’ account.
  • At last, you will have to provide some of your basic details like your name and profile picture.

That is all. No need to register, no need to confirm.

Benefit Of OpenID For Different Level Of Internet Users

General Internet User

  • Convenient online experience: Do not have to memorize a number of username and password for different sites
  • Security: If you could find a secure OpenID provider, the phishing attack surface is reduced.

E-Commerce And OpenID Consumers.

  • Being an OpenID consumer, they can give a simple user registration to the users. This will give a major attractiveness for website.
  • With the user’s approval, the OpenID let know more about the visitors to the consumers to target their market
  • Can be prevent from identity theft, as the login information can be retrieved from OpenID

OpenID is not a perfect solution for a normal user, until he’s getting used to it, and to prevent the security problem, the user must choose a secured OpenID provider.

References

  • (2010). Retrieved on 2010, April from wired.com: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Use_OpenID
  • (2010). Retrieved on 2010, April from zdnet.com: http://blogs.zdnet.com/digitalID/?p=78
  • (2010). Retrieved on 2010, April from penn-olson.com: http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/openid.gif

Apple iPad Review

iPad, the Apple’s latest product which has announced to release this year. iPad is not a replace for any of the Apple products. It has more features like Amazon’s e-paper Kindle.

apple-ipad-4189513

Specification and Features

Its operating system is similar to iPhone’s operating system and has custom designed A4, Apple 1GHz Processor. It has 1024 x 768 resolutions, 9.7 inch LED touch screen, 1.5 pounds weight, 0.5 inch thin and it has around 10 hours of battery life as well. iPad has the fasters built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi connection, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and 7.2 Mbps 3G data speed. There are particularly designed games and apps available for iPad and an iWork suite which contains word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software especially for business use also announced. The starting price will be around $499 (16 GB). If you want to use AT&T connectivity, which is Apple recommended, another $130 will be added to the price. Apple’s iBook the virtual bookshop is one of the main features in iPad. You can turn pages with a single tap in the right-hand margin.

In addition, you can have a bunch of photo album in your iPad, and when it’s charging state, you can use it as a digital photo frame. Moreover, its high-resolution screen makes it perfect for watching any kind of video such as HD movies, TV shows and music videos. It has a unique YouTube app where you can easily navigate videos and organize videos. With the iPod application, you can browse, organize and listen to music with the powerful built-in speaker. The iTune store lets you to browse, buy music, TV shows or you can buy or rent movies with thousands of collections or you can sync with your Mac or PC to share the contents through iTune. There are around 140,000 applications available for iPad and you can easily browse, buy and download them from App Store.

The Google powered helps you to navigate with high-resolution satellite images where you can use your current location as well as you can get the directions. To taking notes, iPad has an onscreen keyboard and in landscape view, you can see your list of notes and the current one will shown win a red circle. From the Home Screen, you can have access to everything in your iPad in a tap and you can move apps around the screen in any order you want. Finally, the Spotlight Search allows you to search across iPad and its built-in apps.

Lack Of Functionalities

Even though iPad has the entire above-mentioned feature, it has failed some functionality as well. Due to lack of multitasking that means that you cannot listen to music while editing a photo. It’s a major issue in iPad. It does not have a camera. Even the iPod nano has a camera, so a business product without a web cam or at least a normal cam. So no video chatting, no photo snaps. It does not include a USB port, so file transfer between other devices will be difficult and inconvenient. Users have to depend on a USB adapter. Most of the users never accept this. iPad doesn’t support Flash. Which means you cannot view Flash embedded sites and applications. The main arguments against Flash running on the iPad are that it’s a resource hog and a security risk, but the lack of Flash support is nonetheless a hindrance for users. While the iPad’s display has been praised as crisp and sharp, its screen — LED-backlit with In-Plane Switching (IPS) — has its downsides. The iPad’s screen is not as power efficient as OLED devices, which don’t drain batteries as quickly. Moreover, LED screen tends to be harder on the eyes than the e-ink screens used on eReaders such as the Kindle. Apple has its own App Store for iPad and it has a lot of restriction on apps like no porn, nothing that infringes on the Apple trademark etc. The Free Software Foundation has already criticized the product, saying iPad is bad for freedom.

People have to think is it worth to buy this product for $500? Moreover, user has to depend on the iStore.  We can expect more features and bug fixed updates in future. However, for now its people have to decide do they really want to replace their current device to iPad.

References

  • (n.d). Retrieved on January 2010 from huffingtonpost.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/apple-ipad-review-photos_n_441770.html?slidenumber=Dpqk1VkFkhM%3D&&&&&&&&&
  • (n.d). Retrieved on January 2010 from apple.com: http://www.apple.com/ipad/
  • (n.d). Retrieved on January 2010 from sindhtoday.net: http://www.sindhtoday.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/apple-ipad_tablet.jpg

See Also

Enterprise | Notes Of Genius

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Your are here: Home // Posts Tagged With JAVA EE

As you already know Java EE platform is a much more mature platform for developing distributed enterprise software applications. Since its release (in 1999) the adaption of the developers and the usability of the customers increase incredibly contrasting with the other major platforms. So far so good, different kinds of innovations were implemented such as frameworks, tools, deployment capabilities…