Samsung Galaxy A7 (SM-A700FD) images Leaked Online

Samsung has always been among the top list of critics in terms of build quality of its devices. In recent past samsung has been able to shut their mouths by launching some great phones in galaxy series like galaxy alpha. After the launch of the Galaxy Alpha, the giant South Korean phone maker is ready with next launch with  Galaxy A7, which comes after the release of Samsung Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 recently.

This device will board a massive 5.5-inch screen with Full HD capability. A Samsung-made handset (model number SM-A700FD) has been listed on Zauba, the website which tracks imports and exports in India. The listing does not mention any crucial details about the device, but it does note the Galaxy A7 will come with a 5.5-inch display and dual-SIM connectivity. Furthermore, the shipping manifest says that two Samsung Galaxy A7 units were shipped for testing, each one having an approximate value of Rs. 12,534.

Gionee Marathon M3 5-inch has a massive 5000mAh battery and will be priced at Rs 13999

The Gionee Marathon M3 with its huge 5000mAh battery that offers 51 hours of talk time to users, has landed on the company’s website for India. This smartphone is yet to be made official by the Chinese manufacturer, but we already know that it will be sold in the country with its price set at Rs 13999.

The 5000mAh power source which the Gionee Marathon M3 has been blessed with, lends it 2G talk time of 51 hours and 32 hours of the same on 3G networks. Those are some extremely impressive statistics for a smartphone in this price bracket.

Moreover, the other specs of the Marathon M3 are equally striking as well, with the highlight among them being the 5-inch 720p HD display with its IPS and OGS properties. While Android 4.4 KitKat is the OS of choice here, the processing on this Gionee phone is handled by a quad core 1.3GHz Cortex A7 CPU.

1GB of RAM and 8GB worth of storage have been granted to the device, apart from a microSD card slot that can be used to expand the storage up to 128GB. The rear surface of this Gionee handset houses an 8MP camera with an LED flash, whereas the front plays home to a 2MP snapper.

A glance at the key specs of the Gionee Marathon M3:

- Display: 5-inch IPS OGS, 720p HD

- OS: Android 4.4 KitKat

- Processor: 1.3GHz quad core

- GPU: ARM Mali450 MP

- Memory: 1GB RAM, 8GB storage (expandable up to 128GB)

- Camera: 8MP rear with LED flash, 2MP front

- Battery: 5000mAh

- Dimensions: 144.5mm x 71.45mm x 10.4mm

- Weight: 180.29gms

The Gionee Marathon M3 is still to be officially announced by its makers, but we’re guessing that should not take long to happen.

Android 5.0 Lollipop is available for public now

The long wait has come to end for those of you who eagerly wanted to see android lappypop on there devices. The Android Official Blog has put out a post saying that Android 5.0 Lollipop has started rolling out today. Google has confirmed that Android 5.0 Lollipop would be coming to all the Nexus devices – Nexus 4, Nexus 5 and tablets Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013 editi0ns) and Nexus 10. The Nexus 9 which has launched internationally comes baked in with Lollipop and so will the Google Nexus 6 when it comes out.

For those of you who already own Nexus devices and can’t wait for the Lollipop update notification can manually check for one.

Just head to Settings>About Phone>System Update>Check Now.


Here are best features announced in the latest Android OS:

1. Pick up where you left off: Similar to Continuity in iOS 8, Lollipop lets you pick up where you left off, so the songs, photos, apps, and even recent searches from one of your Android devices can be immediately accessed across devices.

2. Multiple device compatibility: Lollipop will support devices with different screen sizes including wearables such as smartwatches, TVs and cars. According to Google, it is designed to be flexible, so that it can work on all your devices and customised for your needs.

3. Material Design: In order to maintain a consistent design experience across all Android devices, Lollipop uses the Material Design interface across devices it runs on.With Material Design, elements can dynamically shrink and expand, there’s more white space between elements, and gives a 3D appearance overall. While we are yet to try it out ourselves, Google claims that the new design is more intuitive and transitions between tasks are more fluid.


4. Updated camera: Lollipop makes it easier to support features like burst mode and fine settings tuning. You’ll be able to capture full resolution frames around 30fps, and shoot in raw formats like YUV and Bayer RAW. There’s also support for UHD 4K video playback, tunneled video for high quality video playback on Android TV and improved streaming. Lollipop adds professional features to control settings for the sensor, lens and flash per individual frame.

5. Battery settings: There’s a new battery-saver feature that extends the life of your device by up to 90 minutes—helpful if you’re far from a power outlet. It’s also easier to manage your power usage. The OS adds a feature which gives the estimated time left before you need to charge and, when it’s charging, it tells you approximately how much time it will need to charge before it’s ready to go.

6. Improved security: Share your device securely with guest user mode, create multiple user accounts to enable friends to log in on your device. In either case, no one will be able to access your private files. There’s Android Smart Lock to secure your phone or tablet by pairing it with a trusted device like your wearable or even your car. Google has enforced the SELinux security module for all apps to give better protection against vulnerabilities and malware.

7. Updated notifications screen: You can now view and respond to messages directly from your lock screen, or hide notifications for sensitive content. Turning on Priority mode through your device’s volume button will allow only certain people and notifications get through.You can also choose to avoid calls from interrupting the game you are playing or the movie you are watching.

8. New Quick Settings: The updated Quick Settings on the notification screen has new handy controls such as flashlight, hotspot, screen rotation and cast screen controls. While these settings were not on older stock-Android devices, they may already be present on other customised Android devices. Similarly, you can manually adjust the brightness for certain conditions, while adaptive brightness will kick in based on ambient lighting.

9. Smoother experience: Google uses a new runtime on Android (called ART), which claims to improve app performance, battery life and responsiveness. Google claims that the new OS improves Android’s performance by four times. It compacts background apps and services so you can do more at once. There’s also support for 64-bit chips now.

10. Tap and Go: Tap and Go for NFC devices lets you set up your new Android phone or tablet instantly by simply tapping it to your old one. Whenever you get a new Android phone or tablet, you can sync your apps from Google Play automatically from any of your old Android devices.

Future of a Software Engineer ?

The Big Question on My Mind nowadays is 'What is the future of a  Software Engineer ?'

His career starts at 22, if he is placed immediately after college or he gets a job in off campus campaigns. By the time he reaches 35, he has to plan for his future. But is there future for a software engineer after 35 in his own sector. Every one cannot become a CEO or reach a manager level and continue to work for 20 to 25 years and then retire as it happens in many government or other management related jobs.

Software Engineer was a most wanted person in all the matrimony websites few years back. Now people are slowly moving towards grooms in other sectors like government sector.

So is this downfall of software jobs or people are no more interested to give their daughters to software engineers because of the insecurity in there jobs.

Well that is one of the reason which is considered by most of the people but the fact is that IT people are still highly paid employees and have good chances of settling abroad.

Agile Software Development Methodology

Agile is software development methodology. It is very effective where Client frequently changes his
requirement.Since it has more iteration so you can assure a solution that meets clients requirement.
More than one build deployment for a project.It involves more client interaction and testing effort.

There are two methods by which this methodology can be implemented:-

1) Scrum: Each iteration would called a scrum which can be a 1-2 Months.In Scrum Client prioritize
his requirements what he want first. If developer did not meets all the requirement which was being fixed for a particular scrum than rest of the development part would be transferred to the next scrum (would be delivered in the next build),  means developer can't increase time decided for a scrum.

2) Extreme Programming (XP): here iteration period would be less then in scrum , which is being 2-4
weeks.Here developer prioritize what to do first on the basis of client requirement. This duration which
was being fixed for a iteration, can be increase if the some development part is still pending. The build would deployed with having all the client needs.Thus iteration period is not fixed here it can be increase.but iteration should meets all the client's requirement in this build.More attention is required for testing in XP.

It is a methodology to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. This is useful when we don't have a clear idea of the client's requirements.The development activities can be carried out using the iterative actions.

The following table enumerates the reasons for choosing Agile methodology over the Waterfall method.
 

1) Once a stage is completed in the Waterfall method, there is no going back, since most software designed and implemented under the waterfall method is hard to change according to time and user needs.  The problem can only be fixed by going back and designing an entirely new system, a very costly and inefficient method. Whereas, Agile methods adapt to change, as at the end of each stage, the logical program, designed to cope and adapt to new ideas from the outset, allows changes to be made easily.  With Agile, changes can be made if necessary without getting the entire program rewritten.  This approach not only reduces overheads, it also helps in the upgrading of programmes.

2) Another Agile method advantage is one has a launch-able product at the end of each tested stage.  This ensures bugs are caught and eliminated in the development cycle, and the product is double tested again after the first bug elimination.  This is not possible for the Waterfall method, since the product is tested only at the very end, which means any bugs found results in the entire programme having to be re-written.
 

3) Agile’s modular nature means employing better suited object-oriented designs and programs, which means one always has a working model for timely release even when it does not always entirely match customer specifications.  Whereas, there is only one main release in the waterfall method and any problems or delays mean highly dissatisfied customers.    
 

4) Agile methods allow for specification changes as per end-user’s requirements, spelling customer satisfaction.  As already mentioned, this is not possible when the waterfall method is employed, since any changes to be made means the project has to be started all over again.   
 

5) However, both methods do allow for a sort of departmentalization e.g. in waterfall departmentalization is done at each stage.  As for Agile, each coding module can be delegated to separate groups.  This allows for several parts of the project to be done at the same time, though departmentalization is more effectively used in Agile methodologies.

NUnit - A Unit Testing Framework for .Net Applications

What is NUnit 

NUnit is an open-source unit-testing tool built for .NET, which follows in a long line of similar xUnit testing tools built for other platforms. It provides an easy-to-use framework for writing and running unit tests for your .NET applications. NUnit is an automated unit testing framework for .NET. NUnit is free to use with your .NET projects. NUnit is ported from another product called JUnit, which is a unit testing framework for Java applications. NUnit provides a class library which includes some classes and methods to help you write test scripts. NUnit provides graphical user interface application to execute all the test scripts and show the result as a success/failure report (instead of message boxes from the test script). NUnit is the most popular unit testing framework for .net applications. NUnit does not create any test scripts by itself. You have to write test scripts by yourself, but NUnit allows you to use it's tools and classes to make the unit testing easier.

Test Driven Development

Improved Productivity

A key principle of TDD is that developers are most productive when they are in the process of fixing a bug in an application (note: not looking for the bug). This is one of the few times during development that measurable progress is being made on the project. While developers spend time on other things, like finding bugs, they aren't able to spend as much time writing code to correct defects (for example, fixing bugs). A key benefit of test driven development (TDD) is to maximize the time developers spend in bug-fix mode, thus maximizing their productivity.

Improved Quality

In TDD, all non-trivial features of an application are tested. These tests are written before the actual code is written, and they are run all the time. Whenever a test fails, the developer immediately corrects the failure. So, when the time comes to add new functionality, the developer assumes the functionality exists and writes a test. He then runs the tests (which often won't even compile if they rely on as-yet-undefined classes and methods), and when they fail, he enters bug-fix mode and begins adding code to the application until he can get all tests to pass once more. Often, the process of writing the test for the functionality will provide the developer with a better understanding of how the production code should be designed, resulting in improved final code quality.
TDD also makes code easier to maintain, upgrade, and redesign, and has other benefits which the reader is encouraged to research.

NUnit: A Test Framework for .NET

NUnit provides a simple way for developers to write unit tests of the .NET classes, and comes with a small, sample application that demonstrates its use. The current version is written in C# and relies on attributes rather than inheritance and/or naming conventions to define tests and test suites. The main attributes involved are TestFixture, which applies to a class containing tests, SetUp and TearDown, which are run before and after each test, and Test.

NUnit also provides a simple graphical user interface that lets you select which assembly you want to test and which set of tests within that assembly you want to run. It then runs all of the tests in the assembly (or namespace or class) selected, displaying a green bar if everything passes and a red bar if any tests failed. Details of each failed test are also displayed, making it very easy to locate the cause of the failure.

Figure 1. NUnit's GUI tool provides instant feedback that everything is running as it should be, according to the tests defined so far.

Figure 2. NUnit shows the details of a failure caused by an invalid connection string.

There are other testing tools coming to market for .NET, but today NUnit has the largest support base, and is both free and open source, making it something you may want to try first.

Related Tools

NUnit Visual Studio .NET Addin

This addin, which requires NUnit, allows you to run your tests without leaving the Visual Studio .NET IDE. Simply right-click on a project or solution in the Solution Explorer to run all tests within that project or solution. The results are displayed in the Output window. Unfortunately, there are no pretty green or red bars, but if having one less program open is important to you, this can be a useful tool.

Figure 3. Run tests in Visual Studio .NET with a simple right-click.

Figure 4. Output from NUnit tests run within Visual Studio .NET

NUnitASP

NUnitASP allows TDD to be extended to the user interface in ASP.NET, by providing a means of testing Web controls. Its usage is beyond the scope of this article, but you may learn more about it from the NUnitASP Web site.

A Simple Application

To demonstrate TDD, I've used it to help me redevelop a multi-tier sample application for ASP.NET. The application demonstrates how to register a user for an application, how to grant them access to secure web pages, and how to allow them to sign in and sign out. The data access layer for this application is concerned with adding users to the database, retrieving user information, and verifying that user logins are correct. I’ve used this sample for a couple of years now and built it with TDD several times, learning new things with each iteration.

Windows Workflow Foundation?

What is Windows Workflow Foundation?

WWF is a programming model for building workflow-enabled applications on windows. System. Workflow namespace has all the necessary modules to develop any type of workflow.

What is a Workflow?

A Workflow is a set of activities, which is stored as model and they depict a process. Below figure depicts clearly the difference between Workflow and Activity. Every task is an activity and group of activity depicts a complete workflow. Workflow is run by the Workflow runtime engine.

What are different types of Workflow in Windows Workflow foundation?

There are two basics type of workflow Sequential Workflow and State machines workflow.
A sequential workflow has clear start and finish boundaries. Workflow controls execution in Sequential workflow. In sequential execution, one task is executed after other. Sequential workflow is more rigid in format and execution path has a deterministic nature.

A State machine workflow is more dynamic in nature. Workflow has states and the state waits for events to help it move to next state. In State machine execution path is undeterministic nature.
Below figure shows visual conceptualization of fundamentals. You can see in Sequential workflow the execution path is very determent. Shiv performs the entire task sequentially and these tasks are very determent. Now have a look at the second workflow. Every state goes to other state when it receives some external events. For instance when Shiv is seeing star trek there is an event of flashing news which triggers him to see the flashing new.