Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 3 years ago.
Improve this question
There's a project which we're doing for the govt which necessisiates the use of a workflow system. I'm looking for advice on what software systems we can use (either commercial or open source / freeware) with appropriate customizations.
Steps:
0. We monitor a certain site for "notifications". Whenever a notification is posted, this is what happens for each notification.
1. A team of 2-3 people (our employees) have to examine the document, examine whether we need to act on it. One person examines it, the other reviews the first's decision/action.
2. If we need to act on it, one of them needs to prepare a sort of summary document for outside experts. Again, another person (not the writer) needs to review it.
3. This document needs to be sent to outside experts (emailed in most cases, but also via postal mail). A database of experts and their specialities needs to be maintained.
4. A system of keeping track of which document went to whom and when needs to be maintained.
5. Responses will be received from the outside-experts (electronically and postal). The system needs to keep track of from whom we did NOT receive responses, so that we can remind them.
6. Once all responses have been collated, the company employees need to prepare a report which needs to be approved by a supervisor before it can be sent out to the govt.
I understand that a number of tools would be required and/or extensive customizations. That's fine - looking for inputs on all these aspects.
Steve!
If you already define a fixed workflow process, you can develop the workflow with Windows Workflow Foundation, or hire a developer to do it for you.
If you prefer a customizable workflow product, K2 (http://www.k2.com/) is a good option.
Are you using SharePoint or not?
In that case have a look at BlackPoint and Nintex.
Both will give you lots of workflow options based on SharePoint. If I interpret your requirements correctly these packages should be able to implement them all without coding.
I would advocate Nintex Workflow since I have positive experience working with it. Installation and initial configuration is quite easy although features are impressive. It also built is a way that end users can build their own flows, it's fairly easy to do. Also you can build more complex flows, create custom actions and use the web services SDK to access the activities/perform actions from the outside of the SharePoint - I used it from InfoPath and Silverlight forms.
A good commercial option would be PNMsoft's Sequence.
Related
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
"My team lead just gave me a task to study about Coded UI, then create a program afterwards. He told me to focus on the 'code' rather than 'record'. Honestly, I don't have an idea or background about it. What's on Microsoft's website is too technical for me. Please give me a more simple idea on what it is all about. :) Thanks in advance! ---Intern Here!"
To everyone:
Sorry for asking a question which is too broad. My account is currently unable to ask questions.
Now, I have better knowledge in Coded UI, thanks to Google. I humbly admit my mistakes. Lesson learned: Google first. Thanks guys.
Coded UI is part of the testing (quality assurance) aspect of Microsoft's software development life-cycle strategy. Coded UI tests are typically created and used by quality assurance folks to verify that code meets the business' requirements. Sometimes they share these tests with developers so developers can better repeat and understand the bugs the tests locate.
Coded UI tests themselves are basically a way of creating an automated test that tests user interface functionality. So for example, you could record navigating to a certain page in the company's application, login and then go to some page where a bug can be be made to happen. Then you could play back that actual 'recording' as many times as you want to see if the bug was fixed. There some other tools that automate stuff like this such as watir. Watir is not a test though to be clear. Just a way of automating browser strokes (and recording them).
Lastly, your team lead says code rather than record. When recording a UI test you actually do it as described above. You click record, go through the steps and then when done click stop. You can also create an automated UI test (also known as Coded UI test) using just code. You can ALSO record a coded UI test I believe and then edit it in code mode.
FORGOT to mention: You can add assertions as a part of your test (much like other forms of code testing). This means you could say that the profile should not allow a box to contain a certain value under certain conditions and the test should fail if this is allowed when the test is run.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 5 years ago.
Improve this question
I'm looking for the "best" agile-friendly feature and defect tracking software. Currently, we are using fogbugz, but this is not terribly useful for teams following an agile methodology as far as I can tell. There are better tools for this, such as Greenhopper for JIRA. I've used JIRA before, but I'm wondering if there are any other tools that are better.
I'll relate my experience, hoping it will be helpful.
We started piloting Scrum using cards on a wall. We figured we would switch to a tool once we started doing it for real. We set up our defect tracker (Redmine) with User Story and Tasks, and have a way to create a burndown in each project. What we found, however, is that you don't really get the transparency of a physical information radiator. People walk by the card wall and can see the team progress. Very few will check the web site as often as they inspect the card wall. So currently, we do the card wall for the current Sprint and track the Sprint in Redmine, which gives us historical information.
As we scaled up to more teams than we have wall space for, we realized we're going to need a tool that can work like a card wall and be a 'real' agile tracker. So we looked at several tools, and our short list included Version One, Rally, and Mingle. Either of these products might be best for you, but ultimately we chose Mingle for various reasons.
The one thing I worry about is the loss of the card walls. It's hard to explain the transformative value that these public information radiators have had. The teams get lots of visibility from the Product Owners as well as management and other stakeholders. I worry that the visibility will be lost if we switch to using solely the tool. I may have to build dashboards that go up on wall-mounted monitors, acting as a high-tech version of the card walls. One thing we did do was procure some touchscreen whiteboards that will allow teams in standups to move virtual cards in a familiar way, using the tool's drag-and-drop card wall interface. I'm hoping this will allow us to retain the team communication and interaction benefits we've seen when gathered around a card wall.
Anyway, good luck with your quest!
We are using PivotalTracker (http://pivotaltracker.com) in our projects. It is a lightweight and easy to use tool. It works in the cloud, so creating an account and setting up a project is a matter of minutes. User story and bug entering is quite easy. The tool supports a standard workflow of tasks consisting of Not Started, Started, Finished, Delivered, Accepted and Rejected states.
I haven't tried fogbugz yet but I used JIRA, Greenhopper and VersionOne before PivotalTracker. The downside of all these tools against PivotalTracker is that using them brings you too much overhead. You have to setup and maintain them. You have to configure them. And because they are harder to use, they require more time for daily usage. I have seen that developers hesitate to use these tools because they create too much friction. IMO PivotalTracker is the best tool in this respect.
The downside of PivotalTracker is that it gives only a few configuration options. It doesn't allow you to customize workflows. It doesn't have much user authorization options. But in our case it suits very good to our needs.
This might be a non-answer to some extent, but I hope it will still be informative and add value.
I've been on multiple teams using various tools including physical boards and Greenhopper. Other agile teams in my department have used and evaluated various other options. If you are talking about finding the most efficient way to manage the team within a sprint (as opposed to release planning, backlog grooming, etc) I've come to the following conclusion:
Nothing is going to be a great fit unless you wrote the tool yourself or use a speadsheet. Yes, a spreadsheet. It's the most flexible option I've come across. We use a fancy one with burndown charts and such, but it works great.
Any tool you find now which may be a perfect fit will eventually end up not doing something you want. Here is an example from my own recent experience:
We were working to bring down the length of time it takes to report status during out daily scrum meeting. The challenge was that developers have a tendency to go into a detailed explanation of issues they've encountered while working on a task. We try to postpone those discussions until after the scrum meeting. It was hard to do until we started simply highlighting any items in the spreadsheet we need to discuss further. This let us move on with the meeting but not lose track of issues that need to be discussed. It was effortless to introduce this into our process precisely because we were using a flexible tool like a spreadsheet. The tool didn't stand in the way of improving our process.
As for defect tacking, most of the teams in my department use JIRA.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
We don’t allow questions seeking recommendations for books, tools, software libraries, and more. You can edit the question so it can be answered with facts and citations.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
We are developing a web application using Spring framework and Hibernate ORM. As far as application security is concerned we are using acegi to provide authentication and authorization support.
Now about user input sanitation, we have tried to take take care about attacks like XSS and sql injections. We have tried to use as much as prepared statements and hibernate criteria for database updates and queries. Inputs are sanitized for javascript also.
For testing these we have tried to use tools like Firebug, Tamper IEand Fiddler2 etc.
We have also used tools like Watch Mouse to do vulnerability tests.
What are the other tools available for web application security and what are the things to be considered before starting a web applications security testing.
Thanks you
HP has a security assessment tool called Webinspect, but it not free and I wouldn't recommend it. Either my company doesn't know how to use it, or the tool has no consistency in finding vulnerabilities.
You're better off hiring an actual pen-testing contracting agency to look for vulnerabilities in your site. Sure, you could run automated scanners, but they can only do so much. You'll probably waste more money and resources attempting to learn and implement proper pen testing then you would just hiring someone else to do it.
The fact that you're asking this question means that you are not qualified to give the kind of confidence or complete coverage a commercial application would need before launch.
You can use AppScan, but its not free.
Burpsuite is an amazing tool for web application testing.
I do agree with hiring an outside team however, but if your company cannot/will-not, put a weekend into getting familiar with BurpSuite and you will undoubtedly find some bugs.
I agree with those who have encouraged you to look to an outside pen testing firm, if you want the best results now.
That said, one of the best all-around web app pen testing tools I have used is Burp Suite (portswigger.net). There is a free version that gives you most of the functionality, but investing $400 in the Pro version, which adds a vulnerability scanner and the ability to save state, is well worth it.
In addition, you should become very familiar with the OWASP organization (owasp.org), and the information/tools they make available for web app security. The Cheat Sheets and the Testing Guides can be very helpful, if you know how to use them.
Finally, if you are determined to build up your own application security team, then you should consider hiring some folks with extensive application security experience as well as a background in software development. There is more to application security than security testing. Static security code analysis and threat modeling are just two of the other areas you should be thinking about.
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
Let's say I have designed s very important system, and this system costs thousands dollars. I want to protect my system with a serial number as I know crackers will try to edit the binary code to bypass the serial number.
I have read about using a checksum function and apply it over my binary code and check the value if changed, but again, we are talking about a condition a cracker can avoid by editing the code.
My question is: what's the most used technique to protect important programs?
I have yet to see a "protected" digital product that had not been cracked pretty quickly after its publication (or in some cases, before its publication). Sorry, but it's the reality. You have to get the revenue by making a good product. Most of those who want to use it and can afford, will pay.
There will be a few dickheads, but that's life. You better be kind towards the legit users of your software and not bully them with weird copy protection attempts that don't work anyway.
If your app is working offline, whatever checks you do (check sums, serial code validity, etc), do them often, repeating verification code, in many routines of your software. Obfuscate your code, to make reverse engineering a more difficult task, and, if you have the possibility, implement an online check, part of the core functionality of your app residing on your server, and being serviced only to those installations that you have checked server-side for valid license key. Associate the license key to some form of unique identifier of the hardware the app is running on, and if you check online, have statistics concerning the IPs that make the verification request: if you encounter more IPs trying to verify the same license key, contact the buyer and approve a list of IPs they usually log on from, whilst blacklisting any other until specific request from them, either by mail or by phone.
The most used technique is serial numbers. But your customers will have access to the code, so they will be able to bypass your serial number check, no matter how much work you put into obfuscating it.
However, if you can provide your software as a subscription-based or one-time-payment web application, then people will not be able to do this. Whether this is feasible or not depends on the type of application you're writing.
I would always recommend to build a custom software protection before applying any kind of commercial protector such as a Packer.
In any case just a serial validation and a checksum check are not going to keep crackers away.
I would recommend you to visit my new blog www.anti-reversing.com and take a quick look at the anti-piracy tips & tricks page just to have an idea about what I am talking about.
Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.
Closed 8 years ago.
Questions asking us to recommend or find a tool, library or favorite off-site resource are off-topic for Stack Overflow as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, describe the problem and what has been done so far to solve it.
This question does not appear to be about a specific programming problem, a software algorithm, or software tools primarily used by programmers. If you believe the question would be on-topic on another Stack Exchange site, you can leave a comment to explain where the question may be able to be answered.
Improve this question
Currently all our files are stored on a Windows network drive and with 15 members of staff and 3 external workers, file control is beginning to become a bit of a nightmare. Even though we have a policy in place, people still seem to save file to their PCs, make changes, and copy them back without notifying anyone, send files via email instead of its location, and create folders/structures which only make sense to them.
Consequently on a recent project we found that 3 members of staff were using different versions of the same document and when those 3 people are editors and proof readers, you can probably imagine the problem that ensued in the end.
So we are looking for some nice simple file management apps. MS Sharepoint has been mentioned but we are looking to get away from being tied to a Windows machine, and the cost of setup etc. seems expensive particularly for a non-profit company. Also it seems Sharepoint may be a little over-the-top for our needs.
All we need is something that can fulfill the following:
can be used to store and control files
allow different user access
provide basic versioning
hopefully accessible through a web-browser so our remote workers can access it
We are not keen on SAAS solutions because of the nature of our confidentiality and also because we use these files all day everyday and the internet connection does go down from time to time. We want to be able to install in-house.
Ideally the solution will be FOSS, although we will consider buying software if it meets our needs.
You can try Alfresco:
Alfresco is the Open Source
Alternative for Enterprise Content
Management (ECM) led by John Newton,
founder of Documentum, and John
Powell, former COO of Business
Objects, and is backed by Accel
Partners, Mayfield Fund and SAP
Ventures.
Here has a good howto install it on linux.
The first question you probably need to ask is why the existing Windows file shares aren't working, and people are still saving files to their own computers.
For example, if they're often working outside of the office and can't access the file shares or they need to maintain a working copy, these are problems that can be fixed with SharePoint or other version control/file management software.
However, if they're just not following policy, then it's not going to matter what software you put in its place. Figuring out what problems the users have is going to help you choose the right solution.
Not sure this is the best place for such a question (its a discussio with no write/wrong answer) but anyway
Google apps for business?
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
Totally easy, low TOC (OSS is not free in a time sense).
You can share docs (read/write or read only) with external people or just do the old fashioned copy/paste the detail into OpenOffice/Word/iLife whatever and send a copy to them
Wouldn't something like a source control system be useful? SVN for example? admittedly binary files are a problem here, but if you're using a basic format you could convert to rtf or the new document standards used by Office 2007\OpenOffice.
It's worth noting that SharePoint and other variants are used widely for a reason; they do what you need.
Are you trying to avoid Windows Server completely, or just avoid buying Microsoft SharePoint Server?
If you are willing to purchase a Windows Server license you will get a basic version of SharePoint Server called SharePoint Services as part of the package. SharPoint Services allows you to have a powerful document management and collaboration system without having to buy an additional software package. It does include a version control system and you can integrate it with other applications. You can find more information here: Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Overview.
Another MS provided solution that can handle file management and version control is Microsoft Groove. You can find more information on it here: Microsoft Groove. A great feature of Groove is that it can act as a front-end for Sharepoint (and most likely SharePoint Services) to allow users to more easily interact with the file storage mechanism.
A third option but will be less powerful would be to use your existing network file shares (through Windows or Samba), map the shares to local drives and/or reconfigure their My Documents to point to the network, and turn on Offline Storage. This will allow the users to interact with their documents as if they were local files even when they are offline. There will be a few small issues that you will experience with this route but it would break you from having to use a pure Microsoft solution.
In answer to some of the above questions.
The main reason its not working is because. One person will open a document from the shared drive and save a copy to their pc, which they work on. The changes they make are then not on the shared drive, when they copy it back, which everyone does the changes they have made overwrite any anyone else has done, they also dont inform anyone so if someone is working from that document they are now working on an old document. It is a case of getting users into a better frame of mind! But we feel software may help that, plus our external workers do not have access to the internal drive at present.
We have a number of servers, only one is windows and so we want to get away from using that windows server and have all linux servers for ease of management. Any MS product will require we run a dedicated MS machine!!
Local drives mapped is not really a good option as many people work out of the office and so wont be on the network to contribute, plus the file structure would probably not allow it.
It does seem that a MS solution might be the only one, i was just hoping there were some good alternatives available which were also a little simpler.
thnkx
A standard sharepoint document library, with versioning turned on, and checkin/checkout required, would meet your needs. Like previously posted, WSS comes free with Windows Server.