Facebook Management – Facebook tips and tricks to manage facebook account

Tips and tricks for facebook maintenance –

Social networking sites have invented a new virtual world where everyone has their own account identity. In this virtual world of social networking sites, you meet more people than in actual world every day. Among all networking sites, the one which has won the hearts of all people over the globe is FACEBOOK. We have got attached very much with this famous social networking site.

Few days back I figured out some cool tricks and tips for maintaining facebook account. Adding new friends, Deleting, status update, these are normal day today activity which everyone knows. However, following are some smart tips and tricks which will make you more smart facebook user.

So here we go!!!

Overview of Windows Azure Compute

What is windows azure compute –?

I have been trying to understand what Windows Azure Compute is. Finally yesterday I got some free hours to understand basics of windows Azure Compute. So today I will try to discuss the meaning of windows Azure Compute and its features.

Windows Azure has three main core parts –

1.     Compute Service

2.     Storage Service

3.     Fabric

Windows Azure Compute is a one of the core part of windows Azure Cloud Platform. In simple words, Windows Azure compute is application hosting environment. As the name interprets, compute service runs the application. Windows Azure Compute Service can run many different types of applications.

Requirement of Windows Azure Compute -

What is azure appfabric cache and why azure app fabric caching required

What is azure appfabric cache and why azure app fabric caching required

Need for Caching -

Web applications are accessed by multiple users. A web site is used to say having low load when number of clients accessing the site is less, where as a web site is used to say having heavy load when number of clients accessing site is very high. Heavy load on the web site slows down the server processing and ultimately latency and response time is reduced. Slow access is the most common problem for any web site when it is accessed by a large number of clients simultaneously. One of the most common reasons for slow access of web site is database operations. Data base operations are the slowest operation performed in asp.net web site applications. Hence frequent visits to database slow down the web site performance. To minimize the database hits, provide faster data access and to provide performance improvement, Caching is used in asp.net.

Need for Distributed Caching -

Difference between 4g, 3g, 2g and 1g mobile networks

Difference between 4g, 3g, 2g and 1g mobile networks

Yesterday I was having goof time with my friend in a coffee shop. Suddenly he started discussion on mobile networks. He asked me many questions like,

1.     What is 3g mobile network? What are features?

2.    Difference between 2g and 3g networks?

3.    What are 4g mobile networks?

4.    Difference between 3g and 4g?

I tried at my level best to explain him 3g and 4g difference. New features came with 3g mobile. What will be the new features in 4g mobile? Then I thought lets write a post on the same thing. I am not going to explain the technical differences rather i will focus on features being supported in 3g, 4g mobiles.

Today in many countries, 3g network enabled mobiles are on high demand. Before understanding 3g network, let’s first understand meaning of 1g, 2g and 2.5g networks. Even before that first let’s understand, what ‘G’ stands in various G networks?

Here G stands for “Generation”. The power in mobile generation increases with respect preceding number. Higher the number before G means higher the power and efficiency of the mobile networks. In other words, as the number before G increasing, the mobile networks are becoming more “Genius”.

Mozilla Mobile OS – B2G (Boot To Gecko)

Mozilla Mobile OS – B2G (Boot To Gecko)

Everyday new mobiles are coming to market. Along with mobile inventions, today many mobile big players are launching various Mobile Operating systems. Till July 2011, in mobile operating systems, competition was only between, Apple, Microsoft and Google. Now one more successful company in the market of internet browsers has decided to launch operating system for mobile. It is Mozilla.

Facebook launches Facebook Mobile Messaging App

Facebook Mobile Messaging App

Facebook has launched a “mobile messaging application” for smart phones like apple iPhone and Android operating system.

Currently Smartphone’s have ample applications through which users can contact their friends. Facebook mobile messaging app will enable users to message friends which are present in phone’s contact list. Facebook mobile messaging app will also enable users to share locations and photos. Ofcourse choice of sharing location will be user dependent.

However, if users share location then th

Yahoo Web Player – Online Video Sharing facility by Yahoo!!

Yahoo Web Player – Online Video Sharing facility by Yahoo!!

Yahoo has launched new online video sharing web site to compete with You Tube.

It is termed as Yahoo WebPlayer v2.0.  You can say that, it is an answer to You Tube from Google. This is going to be nice experience for online video lovers. Although, many online video sharing web sites were launched, however no one could withstand You Tube popularity or no one could reach even to the level of popularity which “You Tube” has gained.

Yahoo has gone crazy these days!! They have stopped many old web enabled services and launching new services on their web sites almost every month.

They have changed the look and feel of yahoo e-mail service and added very new and attractive services. Most of these services are not even present in G-Mail also. Although the Gmail is still number one having maximum number of users.

Implementing Claim Based Authentication

Implementing Claim Based Authentication

As we all know, Claim based authentication is the future authentication strategy; the obvious question which comes to mind is -

How to implement Claim based authentication? Or How to implement Claim based identity? Or how to configure claim based identity?

However, before going forward I will highly recommend that, you should understand the terminology like Identity Providers, Secure Token Services, Identity and access management and Claim based authentication.

Today I will discuss the generic steps to implement Claim based authentication. I am referring Microsoft Pattern and Practices – A Guide to Claim-based identity book for explanation.

Total there are 4 generic steps to be followed for implementing claim based authentication –

1.   Add logic in your application to for supporting claims –

When you are planning to build claim based application, application needs to know how to validate security token coming from security token service and how to retrieve claim from that security token. Microsoft has given rich classes in a framework to handle implement claim based application. This framework is Windows Identity Foundation (WIF). Windows identity foundation provides basic programming model for claim based authentication. This WIF can be used for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to “secure web services” and also can be used with ASP.Net applications.  In order to use WIF, you will need to add reference to WIF assembly (Microsoft.IdentityModel.dll) in WCF or ASP.NET application.

2.   Acquire or build an issuer –

In most of the enterprise applications, the easiest and most secure way to get issuer of token is ADFS 2.0 (Active Directory Federation Service 2.0). In case of you want to handle great deal of security in your application, you should seek help of experts to get an issuer of security tokens. In this case you will need to WIF.

3.   Configure your application to Trust the Issuer –

Once you have developed a claim based application using WIF and have an issuer to issue security token, the next step is to set up a trust relationship. This is very important step. An application needs to trust the issuer to identify and authenticate users and make claims about their identities. When you configure an application to rely on a specific user, you are establishing a TRUST (or TRUST RELATIONSHIP) with that issuer. You will need to cover following important points –

·         What claims does the issuer offer?

·         What key should the application use to validate the signatures on issued tokens?

·         What URL must user access in order to request a token from the issuer?

Most of the standard issuer offer claims with common required information. The answer to above three questions can be obtained from the issuer by asking for “federation metadata”. This is the XML document which issuer provides to application. This is an XML document that the issuer provides to the application. It includes a serialized copy of the issuer’s certificate that provides your application with the correct public key to verify incoming tokens. WIF includes a wizard that automatically configures your application’s identity settings based on this metadata. You just need to give the wizard the URL for the issuer you’ve selected, and it downloads the metadata and properly configures your application.

4.   Configure the issuer to know about your application –

The issuer needs to know a few things about an application before it can issue it any tokens:

·         What Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) identifies this application?

·         Of the claims that the issuer offers, which ones does this application require and which are optional?

·         Should the issuer encrypt the tokens? If so, what key should it use?

·         What URL does the application expose in order to receive tokens?

When a client requests a token, part of that request includes an identifier for the application the user is trying to access. This identifier is a URI and, in general, it’s simplest to just use the URL of the application, for example, http://www.test.com/sell/.

If you’re building a claims-based Web application that has a reasonable degree of security, you’ll require the use of SSL (HTTPS) for both the issuer and the application. Applications with stronger security requirements can also request encrypted tokens, in which case, the application typically has its own certificate (and private key). The issuer needs a copy of that certificate (without the private key) in order to encrypt the token issued for that application.

Once again, federation metadata makes this exchange of information easy. WIF includes a tool named FedUtil.exe that generates a federation metadata document for your application, so that you don’t have to manually configure the issuer with all of these settings.

If you see I have outlined the high level steps to configure an application for claim based authentication. However, the above steps are very complex to implement and required great amount of expertise.

So what is the solution? – The solution lies in Windows Azure Appfabric ACS.

Click on the following link to go to ACS article - Windows Azure Appfabric Access Control Service (ACS). (Yet to Come)

Cheers…

Happy Programming!!