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What kind of test do I need for my software?

Perfect Testing in Software

Introduction

Most software companies run in that dilemma. In order to write software that works, you want to write some tests. The question for many of these companies is: what kind of tests are most efficient for my business?

Here we talk about seven common test practices in the software industry.

1. Unit Testing

Probably the most used form of testing is Unit Testing. This is easy to write and very effective in discovering bugs. If you are looking at verifying correctness, this is 100% what you need to have to test your software.

Why is it easy to write?

In most cases, Unit ...

3 Efficient Ways to Store Data Long Term

Safe Backups The digital landscape is changing every day. That means that businesses, organizations, and personal information need constant care and attention to maintain their safety, especially if it's data that needs to be kept an eye on for a long time. From being reliable, affordable, and as secure as possible, it's critical that it remains in the right hands.

This is why we've compiled a list of 3 efficient ways to store data long-term, including using off-site cloud storage plus taking advantage of SQL Server Data Tools. Ready to give your info the safety it deserves? Read on…

8 Things to Consider Before Choosing Payroll Software

Are you in the process of purchasing payroll software for your business? Selecting the right one is not as easy as you may think, especially when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. 

This article examines a few things you should know before selecting a software solution that meets your needs.

Accounting done the right way.

What is a Golden File in software development?

Golden Files to run your test with large input and output dataWhile programming, one of the best thing to do to make sure that your software works as expected is to write tests.

Actually, if you write enough tests to make sure that the code works as expected, it should take you between two and three more time to finish up your project. So if it takes you one day to write a function, it will take you another two days to write good tests for that one function.

Many of those tests, especially as you construct more and more complex software, require large amount of input and output data. It's easy enough to test a function such as strlen(). It has one ...

Top 6 Benefits of Hotel Management Software

Technology is ever-changing, and it brings huge operational benefits to all industries, including hospitality. However, not every business has the time, energy, funds, and resources to constantly invest in the latest technological breakthroughs.

That being said, there are a few simple and cost-effective operational aids that are easy to setup and make running a hospitality business that much easier, like hotel management software.

Not sure if you need new software for your hotel? Keep reading to learn how digital hotel management solutions improve efficiency.

Six Tips on How Hotel Software Can Help You

1. Accurate Reports

Hotel ...

Don't Repeat Yourself When Writing Software

Nature tends to repeat itself, or reproduce with similar structure, but code should not.

For a very long time now, we have been using languages that support having functions that one can call. That was not always the case, although even really old versions of BASIC had a GOSUB instruction, which it had no concept of local variables so it was rather difficult to use safely.

Functions allow you to avoid repetition. You write a small snippet of code (or maybe not that small) within a function and then you call that function to reuse that snippet over and over again. Good programmers tend to do that even with one liners. However, many others often think: well, it's just one line, why don't I return copy & paste that wherever I need it, it's going to be faster.

Safely Processing a Queue of Jobs

What is a Queue

In software a queue is a container which is used to add items on one side and remove them on the other in a very efficient manner.

Sorted Queues

When used by a Journal, a queue is often going to support some kind of sorted order. Some jobs are more important than others and these should be built sooner. In other words, we give those jobs a higher priority and we sort the queue by priority first then using the time at which the job gets inserted.

Note that the C++ std::queue and std::unque containers do not offer anyway to support a priority. Instead you have to use ...

Docker, an advanced chroot utility

Chasm—just like a Docker creates a chasm between two sets of software

SECURITY WARNING

Before installing Docker and containers with services on your Linux system, make sure to read and understand the risks as mentioned on this Docker and iptables page. Especially, Docker will make all your containers visible to the entire world through your Internet connection. This is great if you want to indeed share that service with the rest of the world, it's very dangerous if you are working on that container service since it could have security issues that need patching and such. Docker documents a way to prevent that behavior by adding the following rule to your firewall:

iptables -I DOCKER-USER -i eth0 ! -s 192.168.1.0/24 -j DROP

This means that unless the IP address matches 192.168.1.0/24, the access is refused. The `eth0` interface name should be replaced with the interface name you use as the external ethernet connection. During development, you should always have such a rule.

That has not worked at all for me because my local network includes many other computers on my LAN and this rule blocks them all. So really not a useful idea.

Instead, I created my own entries based on some other characteristics. That includes the following lines in my firewall file:

*filter
:DOCKER-USER - [0:0]

-A DOCKER-USER -j early_forward
-A DOCKER-USER -i eno1 -p tcp -m conntrack --ctorigdstport 80 --ctdir ORIGINAL -j DROP
-A DOCKER-USER -i eno1 -p tcp -m conntrack --ctorigdstport 8080 --ctdir ORIGINAL -j DROP
-A DOCKER-USER -i eno1 -p tcp -m conntrack --ctorigdstport 8081 --ctdir ORIGINAL -j DROP

My early_forward allows my LAN to continue to work. These are my firewall rules that allow my LAN computers to have their traffic forwarded as expected.

Then I have three rules that block port 80, 8080, and 8081 from Docker.

Docker will add new rules that will appear after (albeit not within the DOCKER-USER list) and will open ports for whatever necessary service you install in your Dockers.

Note that the only ports you have to block are ports that Docker will share and that you have otherwise open on your main server. If Docker opens port 5000 and your firewall does not allow connections to port 5000 from the outside, then you're already safe. On my end I have Apache running so as a result I block quite usual HTTP ports from Docker.

Docker

As we are helping various customers, we encounter new technologies.

In the old days, we used chroot to create a separate environment where you could have your own installation and prevent the software from within that environment access to everything on your computer. This is particularly useful for publicly facing services liek Apache, Bind, etc.

PHP eFax requires "ssl://" on RedHat EL7 and Ubuntu

We found out today that RedHat LE7 requires the use of the "ssl://" protocol instead of the default "tls://". The error we are getting from PHP looks like this:

PHP Warning:  stream_socket_client(): SSL operation failed with code 1. OpenSSL Error messages:
error:1409442E:SSL routines:ssl3_read_bytes:tlsv1 alert protocol version in .../lib/http_request.php on line 294
PHP Warning:  stream_socket_client(): Failed to enable crypto in .../lib/http_request.php on line 294
PHP Warning:  stream_socket_client(): unable to connect to tls://secure.efaxdeveloper.com:443 ...

Deleting a (Duplicate) Retweet from your Twitter Feed

Double Retweeting and How to Avoid Over-Duplication

I have seen many people retweeting like crazy and I've noticed that once in a while these people have been retweeting the exact same tweet more than once.

I'm pretty sure that in most cases these people ignore the fact. Personally I find their twitter feed annoying because of that. Retweeting is totally okay, it's sharing what others have tweeted and there is nothing wrong with it. However, seeing the exact same tweet 2, 3, 4, or even 5 times pretty much in a row is rather bad taste. I understand that this very tweet is super ...