2014 meant a period of maturation for our magazine, by the increase in the number and the quality of the published articles. In numbers, this was reflected in the increasing number of online loggings which has reached 7000 sessions per month and participants in the release events, which has gone up to an average of 70-80 attendants. The peak was reached in September, when the release event registered over 120 participants, and online during the IT Days period, when there were over 10,000 sessions per month.

A client application can access remote distributed resources. There are several ways to access these resources, but maybe the most portable is that of web services. In this article, we will talk about the REST services (Representational State Transfer), self-descriptive, modern services, with a Java API which has an extraordinary evolution in the last versions of the Java Enterprise platform. We will start by discussing some architectural aspects which are part of the understanding of the components of a distributed application that uses the web services.

As we all know, nowadays, one of the most widely used methods or manners of work in order to manage project teams is Agile. Agile can be successfully implemented by using Scrum (in my opinion, one of the most widespread approaches), Kanban or others. Everybody does Agile, everybody knows the Agile principles and everybody implements them. Due to the nature of my job, I have been through many projects, from the smallest ones to the biggest ones, from the easiest ones to some of the most difficult projects.

Every week, we, at Mozaic Works, in the product development team discover 2-3 potential bugs in the product we are developing during our code review sessions. This happens despite a very structured way of work and despite applying ATDD and Test First / TDD.
Yet developers and technical leads complain to us in the community or during coaching sessions and workshops about various aspects of code reviews. Here are some tips to make your Scrum Code Reviews more useful.

“Well, finally…” Misu respired with ease seeing the name and especially Gogu’s face on the screen of his smartphone. But he hardly managed to say anything since the outpour of Gogu’s words broke out through the little device, as if the dam had given way:
“What has happened, goodman, to make you call like crazy?! Do you think I am blind and can’t see you called the first time? Who died? Has something exploded? ‘Cause I can’t possibly have a quiet day! Just one day, pal, that’s what I allowed myself to take off. On good grounds. One day! And you are calling me five times in one hour. Five! May thunder and lightning come over your phone anytime you reach for it again!. Or is it that you are suicidal and you want me to fix this problem for you, which would make me extremely happy right now…”

In the past years, artificial intelligence has become the answer to many problems, such as detecting fraud and spam messages, classifying images, determining the topic of an article etc. With the rise in the number of internet users, the quantity of data that needs to be processed has also increased. Therefore, storing and processing data on one server has become too difficult, the best solution available being processing it within a distributed system.

Software specification documents serve as reference manuals for user interface designers, programmers who write the code and testers who verify that the software works as intended. In a multi-module application, each component is developed and released individually. Keeping the documents up to date for each component is not easy because it is not only about writing, but also about centralizing all the documents, so they can be easily found by the interested people.

Over 10 years ago, a one day security conference was organized at my university. I wanted to participate, but there were limited places, so they created a registration page which, they said, would open next day at 12 o’clock sharp. I really wanted to participate and especially as they advertised a free T-shirt for the first 20 registrations. Being a pretty good developer at that time, I took a look at the site, found a vulnerability and managed to register myself before the registration opened officially. The next day, I show up to the conference entrance, I say my name, the guy checks me out on the list, I take a quick snoop and I see myself on top of the list, next to my name it says registration time 11:58. I smile :) He says “ahhh... you’re the one... how did you do that??” I ask: do I get a T-shirt ? He says no, you get something better and later he awards me publicly a book: Writing secure code by Michael Howard si David LeBlanc. I started wondering why he is giving me the book, he needs that book more than me! He needs to learn how to write secure code! not me!

Once, Arthur C. Clarke, the author of the famous science fiction novel “2001 – A Space Odyssey”, stated:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic .”

Each day, we are amazed by new and new wonders of science and technique which are becoming part of our everyday life. Things such as the Internet of Things, tablets, smart phones, mobile applications, drones, analytics software, online tracking tools and geolocation tools, self-driving cars, storage in the cloud,

The development of the IT sector creates more and more interesting, attractive jobs yearly for young people who have a passion for informatics. However, due to the increasing number of hirings over the past few years, companies have started to look for more complex profiles. At the same time, there are also candidates who understand that, in order to stand out, they need complementary professional training.

As in the previous 2 years, it’s time for a review of the past 12 months. In general, I feel that Cluj ecosystem is settling down; the “brownian movement” with support initiatives for startups seems clearer now and I believe we’re entering a phase of growth in which the “actors” are already known and they will keep on playing and improving their role. In the following lines, I tried a classification based on the size and overall purpose of these initiatives and, then, a reminder of several startups that got noticed in the last year.

In the last couple of years, project complexity has slowly (and recently not so slowly) risen to a level where the previous ways of dealing with it seem no longer effective. In this first part, I will share some of the reasons why I think complexity is here to stay and also why I think it will continue to raise the bar on what acceptable software means. Complexity is primarily linked to Moore＊s law and to the incredible growth of computing power available today.

The IT experts called 2014 „the Internet of Things year”, as it was one of the hottest topics of the year that just ended. The assigned title is not surprising at all if we consider that important websites such as dzone.com, jaxenter.com or oracle.com published several articles every week about the technologies that are part of the Internet of Things and the bloggers didn’t waste any chance to write about their latest IoT projects. Publishing houses were vigilant as well, dozens of titles being published in 2014, many more waiting to hit the printing press this year.

In theory, sending a message over a wire to another device is a simple task. But sending a message in a reliable and secure way can be a pretty hard job. In an IoT era, where every day the number of devices that are connected to the internet increases drastically, we need to find different communication mechanisms. Because we cannot control when a device is connected to the internet and ready to receive our package, we need to find different ways to communicate with it.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” - Steve Jobs