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The following sections provide an overview of WebLogic Server applications and basic concepts.
This document is written for application developers who want to build WebLogic Server e-commerce applications using the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6. It is assumed that readers know Web technologies, object-oriented programming techniques, and the Java programming language.
WebLogic Server applications are created by Java programmers, Web designers, and application assemblers. Programmers and designers create modules that implement the business and presentation logic for the application. Application assemblers assemble the modules into applications that are ready to deploy on WebLogic Server.
WebLogic Server implements Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Version 5.0 technologies (see
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/documentation/index.html). Java EE is the standard platform for developing multi-tier Enterprise applications based on the Java programming language. The technologies that make up Java EE were developed collaboratively by Oracle and other software vendors.
An important aspect of the Java EE programming model is the introduction of metadata annotations. Annotations simplify the application development process by allowing a developer to specify within the Java class itself how the application component behaves in the container, requests for dependency injection, and so on. Annotations are an alternative to deployment descriptors that were required by older versions of Enterprise applications (Java EE 1.4 and earlier).
According to Oracle, "the focus in Java EE 5 is ease of development. With Java EE 5, there is less code to write – much of the boilerplate code has been removed, defaults are used whenever possible, and annotations are used extensively to reduce the need for deployment descriptors."
EJB 3.0 makes it much easier to program an EJB, in particular by reducing the number of required programming artifacts and introducing a set of EJB-specific metadata annotations that make programming the bean file easier and more intuitive. Another goal of EJB 3.0 is to standardize the persistence framework and reduce the complexity of the entity bean programming model and object-relational (O/R) mapping model. WebLogic Server continues to support Version 2.1 of the EJB specification.
Java EE 5 includes simplified Web Services support and the latest web services APIs, making it an ideal implementation platform for Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA).
Constructing web applications is made easier with JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology and the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL). Java EE 5 supports rich thin-client technologies such as AJAX, for building applications for Web 2.0.
WebLogic Server Java EE applications are based on standardized, modular components. WebLogic Server provides a complete set of services for those modules and handles many details of application behavior automatically, without requiring programming. Java EE defines module behaviors and packaging in a generic, portable way, postponing run-time configuration until the module is actually deployed on an application server.
Java EE includes deployment specifications for Web applications, EJB modules, Web Services, Enterprise applications, client applications, and connectors. Java EE does not specify how an application is deployed on the target server—only how a standard module or application is packaged. For each module type, the specifications define the files required and their location in the directory structure.
Java is platform independent, so you can edit and compile code on any platform, and test your applications on development WebLogic Servers running on other platforms. For example, it is common to develop WebLogic Server applications on a PC running Windows or Linux, regardless of the platform where the application is ultimately deployed.
For more information, refer to the Java EE specification at:
A WebLogic Server Java EE application consists of one of the following modules or applications running on WebLogic Server:
Web application modules—HTML pages, servlets, JavaServer Pages, and related files. See Web Application Modules.
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) modules—entity beans, session beans, and message-driven beans. See Enterprise JavaBean Modules.
Connector modules—resource adapters. See Connector Modules.
Enterprise applications—Web application modules, EJB modules, resource adapters and Web Services packaged into an application. See Enterprise Applications.
Web Services—See WebLogic Web Services.
A WebLogic application can also include the following WebLogic-specific modules:
JDBC and JMS modules—See JMS and JDBC Modules.
WebLogic Diagnostic FrameWork (WLDF) modules—See WebLogic Diagnostic Framework Modules.
A Web application on WebLogic Server includes the following files:
At least one servlet or JSP, along with any helper classes.
Optionally, a
web.xml deployment descriptor, a Java EE standard XML document that describes the contents of a WAR file.
Optionally, a
weblogic.xml deployment descriptor, an XML document containing WebLogic Server-specific elements for Web applications.
A Web application can also include HTML and XML pages with supporting files such as images and multimedia files.
Servlets are Java classes that execute in WebLogic Server, accept a request from a client, process it, and optionally return a response to the client. An HttpServlet is most often used to generate dynamic Web pages in response to Web browser requests.
JavaServer Pages (JSPs) are Web pages coded with an extended HTML that makes it possible to embed Java code in a Web page. JSPs can call custom Java classes, known as tag libraries, using HTML-like tags. The
appc compiler compiles JSPs and translates them into servlets. WebLogic Server automatically compiles JSPs if the servlet class file is not present or is older than the JSP source file. See Building Modules and Applications Using wlappc.
You can also precompile JSPs and package the servlet class in a Web application (WAR) file to avoid compiling in the server. Servlets and JSPs may require additional helper classes that must also be deployed with the Web application.
See the following documentation:
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) beans are server-side Java modules that implement a business task or entity and are written according to the EJB specification. There are three types of EJBs: session beans, entity beans, and message-driven beans.
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0 is a Java EE 5 technology for the development and deployment of component-based business applications. Although EJB 2.X is a powerful and useful technology, the programming model was complex and confusing, requiring the creation of multiple Java files and deployment descriptors for even the simplest EJB. This complexity hindered the wide adoption of EJBs.
Therefore, one of the central goals of version 3.0 of the EJB specification is to make it easier to program an EJB, in particular by reducing the number of required programming artifacts and introducing a set of EJB-specific metadata annotations that make programming the bean file easier and more intuitive. Another goal of the EJB 3.0 specification was to standardize the persistence framework and reduce the complexity of the entity bean programming model and object-relational (O/R) mapping model.
For more information on Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, see "Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 3.0 for Oracle WebLogic Server".
For more information on Enterprise JavaBeans 2.X, see "Understanding Enterprise JavaBeans".
Session beans execute a particular business task on behalf of a single client during a single session. Session beans can be stateful or stateless, but are not persistent; when a client finishes with a session bean, the bean goes away.
Entity beans represent business objects in a data store, usually a relational database system. Persistence—loading and saving data—can be bean-managed or container-managed. More than just an in-memory representation of a data object, entity beans have methods that model the behaviors of the business objects they represent. Entity beans can be accessed concurrently by multiple clients and they are persistent by definition.
The container creates an instance of the message-driven bean or it assigns one from a pool to process the message. When the message is received in the JMS destination, the message-driven bean assigns an instance of itself from a pool to process the message. Message-driven beans are not associated with any client. They simply handle messages as they arrive.
Java EE cleanly separates the development and deployment roles to ensure that modules are portable between EJB servers that support the EJB specification. Deploying an EJB in WebLogic Server requires running the WebLogic Server
appc compiler to generate classes that enforce the EJB security, transaction, and life cycle policies. See Building Modules and Applications Using wlappc.
The Java EE-specified deployment descriptor,
ejb-jar.xml, describes the enterprise beans packaged in an EJB application. It defines the beans' types, names, and the names of their home and remote interfaces and implementation classes. The
ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor defines security roles for the beans, and transactional behaviors for the beans' methods.
Additional deployment descriptors provide WebLogic-specific deployment information. A
weblogic-cmp-rdbms-jar.xml deployment descriptor unique to container-managed entity beans maps a bean to tables in a database. The
weblogic-ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor supplies additional information specific to the
WebLogic Server environment, such as JNDI bind names, clustering, and cache configuration.
Connectors (also known as resource adapters) contain the Java, and if necessary, the native modules required to interact with an Enterprise Information System (EIS). A resource adapter deployed to the WebLogic Server environment enables Java EE applications to access a remote EIS. WebLogic Server application developers can use HTTP servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSPs), Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs), and other APIs to develop integrated applications that use the EIS data and business logic.
To deploy a resource adapter to WebLogic Server, you must first create and configure WebLogic Server-specific deployment descriptor,
weblogic-ra.xml file, and add this to the deployment directory. Resource adapters can be deployed to WebLogic Server as standalone modules or as part of an Enterprise application. See Enterprise Applications.
For more information on connectors, see Programming Resource Adapters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
An Enterprise application consists of one or more Web application modules, EJB modules, and resource adapters. It might also include a client application. An Enterprise application can be optionally defined by an
application.xml file, which was the standard Java EE deployment descriptor for Enterprise applications.
An important aspect of the Java EE programming model is the introduction of metadata annotations. Annotations simplify the application development process by allowing a developer to specify within the Java class itself how the application behaves in the container, requests for dependency injection, and so on. Annotations are an alternative to deployment descriptors that were required by older versions of Enterprise applications (1.4 and earlier).
With Java EE annotations, the standard
application.xml and
web.xml deployment descriptors are optional. The Java EE programming model uses the JDK 5.0 annotations feature (see
http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/5/api/) for Web containers, such as EJBs, servlets, Web applications, and JSPs. See Chapter 7, "Using Java EE Annotations and Dependency Injection."
If the application includes WebLogic Server-specific extensions, the application is further defined by a
weblogic-application.xml file. Enterprise applications that include a client module will also have a
client-application.xml deployment descriptor and a WebLogic run-time client application deployment descriptor. See Appendix A, "Enterprise Application Deployment Descriptor Elements."
For both production and development purposes, Oracle recommends that you package and deploy even standalone Web applications, EJBs, and resource adapters as part of an Enterprise application. Doing so allows you to take advantage of Oracle's split development directory structure, which greatly facilities application development. See Chapter 3, "Creating a Split Development Directory Environment."
An Enterprise application consists of Web application modules, EJB modules, and resource adapters. It can be packaged as follows:
For development purposes, Oracle recommends the WebLogic split development directory structure. Rather than having a single archived EAR file or an exploded EAR directory structure, the split development directory has two parallel directories that separate source files and output files. This directory structure is optimized for development on a single WebLogic Server instance. See Chapter 3, "Creating a Split Development Directory Environment." Oracle provides the
wlpackage Ant task, which allows you to create an EAR without having to use the JAR utility; this is exclusively for the split development directory structure. See Packaging Applications Using wlpackage.
For development purposes, Oracle further recommends that you package standalone Web applications and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) as part of an Enterprise application, so that you can take advantage of the split development directory structure. See Organizing Java EE Components in a Split Development Directory.
For production purposes, Oracle recommends the exploded (unarchived) directory format. This format enables you to update files without having to redeploy the application. To update an archived file, you must unarchive the file, update it, then rearchive and redeploy it.
You can choose to package your application as a JAR archived file using the
jar utility with an
.ear extension. Archived files are easier to distribute and take up less space. An EAR file contains all of the JAR, WAR, and RAR module archive files for an application and an XML descriptor that describes the bundled modules. See Packaging Applications Using wlpackage.
The optional
META-INF/application.xml deployment descriptor contains an element for each Web application, EJB, and connector module, as well as additional elements to describe security roles and application resources such as databases. If this descriptor is present the WebLogic deployer picks the list of modules from this descriptor. However if this descriptor is not present, the container guesses the modules from the annotations defined on the POJO (plain-old-Java-object) classes. See Appendix A, "Enterprise Application Deployment Descriptor Elements."
Web Services can be shared by and used as modules of distributed Web-based applications. They commonly interface with existing back-end applications, such as customer relationship management systems, order-processing systems, and so on. Web Services can reside on different computers and can be implemented by vastly different technologies, but they are packaged and transported using standard Web protocols, such as HTTP, thus making them easily accessible by any user on the Web.
A Web Service consists of the following modules, at a minimum:
A Web Service implementation hosted by a server on the Web. WebLogic Web Services are hosted by WebLogic Server. A Web Service module may include either Java classes or EJBs that implement the Web Service. Web Services are packaged either as Web application archives (WARs) or EJB modules (JARs), depending on the implementation.
A standard for transmitting data and Web Service invocation calls between the Web Service and the user of the Web Service. WebLogic Web Services use Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1 as the message format and HTTP as the connection protocol.
A standard for describing the Web Service to clients so they can invoke it. WebLogic Web Services use Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1, an XML-based specification, to describe themselves.
A standard for clients to invoke Web services—JAX-WS or JAX-RPC. See Getting Started With JAX-WS Web Services for Oracle WebLogic Server or Getting Started With JAX-RPC Web Services for Oracle WebLogic Server, respectively.
A standard for finding and registering the Web Service (UDDI).
For more information about WebLogic Web Services and the standards that are supported, see Introducing WebLogic Web Services for Oracle WebLogic Server.
JMS and JDBC configurations are stored as modules, defined by an XML file that conforms to the
weblogic-jms.xsd and
jdbc-data-source.xsd schema, respectively. These modules are similar to standard Java EE modules. An administrator can create and manage JMS and JDBC modules as global system resources, as modules packaged with a Java EE application (as a packaged resource), or as standalone modules that can be made globally available.
With modular deployment of JMS and JDBC resources, you can migrate your application and the required JMS or JDBC configuration from environment to environment, such as from a testing environment to a production environment, without opening an enterprise application file (such as an EAR file) or a JMS or JDBC standalone module, and without extensive manual JMS or JDBC reconfiguration.
Application developers create application modules in an enterprise-level IDE or another development tool that supports editing of XML files, then package the JMS or JDBC modules with an application and pass the application to a WebLogic Administrator to deploy.
For more information, see:
The WebLogic Diagnostic Framework (WLDF) provides features for generating, gathering, analyzing, and persisting diagnostic data from WebLogic Server instances and from applications deployed to server instances. For server-scoped diagnostics, some WLDF features are configured as part of the configuration for the domain. Other features are configured as system resource descriptors that can be targeted to servers (or clusters). For application-scoped diagnostics, diagnostic features are configured as resource descriptors for the application.
Application-scoped instrumentation is configured and deployed as a diagnostic module, which is similar to a diagnostic system module. However, an application module is configured in an XML configuration file named
weblogic-diagnostics.xml which is packaged with the application archive.
For detailed instructions for configuring instrumentation for applications, see "Configuring Application-Scoped Instrumentation".
WLS also supports the use of an external diagnostics descriptor so you can integrate diagnostic functionality into an application that has not imported diagnostic descriptors. This feature supports the deployment view and deployment of an application or a module, detecting the presence of an external diagnostics descriptor if the descriptor is defined in your deployment plan (
First, define the diagnostic descriptor as external and configure its URI in the
plan.xml file. For example:
<module-override> <module-name>reviewService.ear</module-name> <module-type>ear</module-type> </module-descriptor> <module-descriptor external="true"> <root-element>wldf-resource</root-element> <uri>META-INF/weblogic-diagnostics.xml</uri> ... ... </module-override> <config-root>D:\plan</config-root>
Then place the external diagnostic descriptor file under the URI. Using the example above, you would place the descriptor file under
d:\plan\ META-INF.
A deployment configuration refers to the process of defining the deployment descriptor values required to deploy an Enterprise application to a particular WebLogic Server domain. The deployment configuration for an application or module is stored in three types of XML document: Java EE deployment descriptors, WebLogic Server descriptors, and WebLogic Server deployment plans. This section describes the Java EE and WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors. See Deployment Plans for information on deployment plans.
The Java EE programming model uses the JDK 5.0 annotations feature for Web containers (see
http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/5/api/), such as EJBs, servlets, Web applications, and JSPs. Annotations simplify the application development process by allowing a developer to specify within the Java class itself how the component behaves in the container, requests for dependency injection, and so on. Annotations are an alternative to deployment descriptors that were required by older versions of Web applications (2.4 and earlier), Enterprise applications (1.4 and earlier), and Enterprise JavaBeans (2.x and earlier). See Chapter 7, "Using Java EE Annotations and Dependency Injection."
However, Enterprise applications fully support the use of deployment descriptors, even though the standard Java EE ones are not required. For example, you may prefer to use the old EJB 2.x programming model, or might want to allow further customizing of the EJB at a later development or deployment stage; in these cases you can create the standard deployment descriptors in addition to, or instead of, the metadata annotations.
Modules and applications have deployment descriptors—XML documents—that describe the contents of the directory or JAR file. Deployment descriptors are text documents formatted with XML tags. The Java EE specifications define standard, portable deployment descriptors for Java EE modules and applications. Oracle defines additional WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors for deploying a module or application in the WebLogic Server environment.
Table 1-1 lists the types of modules and applications and their Java EE-standard and WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors.
The XML schemas for the WebLogic deployment descriptors listed in the following table include elements from the
http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-javaee/1.2/weblogic-javaee.xsd schema, which describes common elements shared among all WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors.
For the most current schema information, see the Oracle WebLogic Server Schema Home page at
Table 1-1 Java EE and WebLogic Deployment Descriptors
|Module or Application
|Deployment Descriptors
Web Application
Java EE
See the Servlet 2.5 Schema at
See "weblogic.xml Deployment Descriptor Elements" in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Enterprise Bean 3.0
Java EE
See the EJB 3.0 Schema at
See Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 3.0 for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Enterprise Bean 2.1
Java EE
See the EJB 2.1 Schema at
See "The weblogic-ejb-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor" in Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
See "The weblogic-cmp-rdbms-jar.xml Deployment Descriptor" in Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Web Services
Java EE
See the Web Services 1.2 Schema at
See "WebLogic Web Service Deployment Descriptor Element Reference" in WebLogic Web Services Reference for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Resource Adapter
Java EE
See the Connector 1.5 Schema at
weblogic-ra.xml Schema: http://xmlns.oracle.com/weblogic/weblogic-connector/1.2/weblogic-connector.xsd
See "weblogic-ra.xml Schema" in Programming Resource Adapters for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Enterprise Application
Java EE
See the Application 5 Schema at
See weblogic-application.xml Deployment Descriptor Elements.
Client Application
Java EE
See the Application Client 5 Schema at
See "Developing a Java EE Application Client (Thin Client)" in Programming Stand-alone Clients for Oracle WebLogic Server.
HTTP Pub/Sub Application
See "Using the HTTP Publish-Subscribe Server" in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for Oracle WebLogic Server.
JMS Module
See "Configuring JMS Application Modules for Deployment" in Configuring and Managing JMS for Oracle WebLogic Server.
JDBC Module
See "Configuring JDBC Application Modules for Deployment" in Configuring and Managing JDBC for Oracle WebLogic Server.
Deployment Plan
See "Understanding WebLogic Server Deployment" in Deploying Applications to Oracle WebLogic Server.
WLDF Module
See "Deploying WLDF Application Modules" in Configuring and Using the Diagnostics Framework for Oracle WebLogic Server.
When you package a module or application, you create a directory to hold the deployment descriptors—
WEB-INF or
META-INF—and then create the XML deployment descriptors in that directory.
WebLogic Server provides a variety of tools for automatically generating deployment descriptors. These are discussed in the sections that follow.
EJBGen is an Enterprise JavaBeans 2.x code generator or command-line tool that uses Javadoc markup to generate EJB deployment descriptor files. You annotate your Bean class file with Javadoc tags and then use EJBGen to generate the Remote and Home classes and the deployment descriptor files for an EJB application, reducing to a single file you need to edit and maintain your EJB
.java and descriptor files. See "EJBGen Reference" in Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans for Oracle WebLogic Server.
WebLogic Server includes a set of Java-based command-line utilities that automatically generate both standard Java EE and WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors for Web applications and Enterprise applications.
These command-line utilities examine the classes you have assembled in a staging directory and build the appropriate deployment descriptors based on the servlet classes, and so on. These utilities include:
java weblogic.marathon.ddinit.EarInit — automatically generates the deployment descriptors for Enterprise applications.
java weblogic.marathon.ddinit.WebInit — automatically generates the deployment descriptors for Web applications.
For an example of
DDInit, assume that you have created a directory called
c:\stage that contains the JSP files and other objects that make up a Web application but you have not yet created the
web.xml and
weblogic.xml deployment descriptors. To automatically generate them, execute the following command:
prompt> java weblogic.marathon.ddinit.WebInit c:\stage
The utility generates the
web.xml and
weblogic.xml deployment descriptors and places them in the
WEB-INF directory, which
DDInit will create if it does not already exist.
So that your applications can take advantage of the features in the current Java EE specification and release of WebLogic Server, Oracle recommends that you always upgrade deployment descriptors when you migrate applications to a new release of WebLogic Server.
To upgrade the deployment descriptors in your Java EE applications and modules, first use the
weblogic.DDConverter tool to generate the upgraded descriptors into a temporary directory. Once you have inspected the upgraded deployment descriptors to ensure that they are correct, repackage your Java EE module archive or exploded directory with the new deployment descriptor files.
weblogic.DDConverter with the following command:
prompt> java weblogic.DDConverter [options] archive_file_or_directory
archive_file_or_directory refers to the archive file (EAR, WAR, JAR, or RAR) or exploded directory of your Enterprise application, Web application, EJB, or resource adapter.
The following table describes the
weblogic.DDConverter command options.
Specifies the directory to which descriptors are written.
Prints the standard usage message.
Turns off output messages except error messages.
Turns on additional output used for debugging.
The following example shows how to use the
weblogic.DDConverter command to generate upgraded deployment descriptors for the
my.ear Enterprise application into the subdirectory
tempdir in the current directory:
prompt> java weblogic.DDConverter -d tempdir my.ear
A deployment plan is an XML document that defines an application's WebLogic Server deployment configuration for a specific WebLogic Server environment. A deployment plan resides outside of an application's archive file, and can apply changes to deployment properties stored in the application's existing WebLogic Server deployment descriptors. Administrators use deployment plans to easily change an application's WebLogic Server configuration for a specific environment without modifying existing Java EE or WebLogic-specific deployment descriptors. Multiple deployment plans can be used to reconfigure a single application for deployment to multiple, differing WebLogic Server environments.
After programmers have finished programming an application, they export its deployment configuration to create a custom deployment plan that administrators later use for deploying the application into new WebLogic Server environments. Programmers distribute both the application deployment files and the custom deployment plan to deployers (for example, testing, staging, or production administrators) who use the deployment plan as a blueprint for configuring the application for their environment.
WebLogic Server provides the following tools to help programmers export an application's deployment configuration:
weblogic.PlanGenerator creates a template deployment plan with null variables for selected categories of WebLogic Server deployment descriptors. This tool is recommended if you are beginning the export process and you want to create a template deployment plan with null variables for an entire class of deployment descriptors.
The Administration Console updates or creates new deployment plans as necessary when you change configuration properties for an installed application. You can use the Administration Console to generate a new deployment plan or to add or override variables in an existing plan. The Administration Console provides greater flexibility than
weblogic.PlanGenerator, because it allows you to interactively add or edit individual deployment descriptor properties in the plan, rather than export entire categories of descriptor properties.
For complete and detailed information about creating and using deployment plans, see:
This section reviews required and optional tools for developing WebLogic Server applications.
The preferred Oracle method for building applications with WebLogic Server is Apache Ant. Ant is a Java-based build tool. One of the benefits of Ant is that is it is extended with Java classes, rather than shell-based commands. Oracle provides numerous Ant extension classes to help you compile, build, deploy, and package applications using the WebLogic Server split development directory environment.
Another benefit is that Ant is a cross-platform tool. Developers write Ant build scripts in eXtensible Markup Language (XML). XML tags define the targets to build, dependencies among targets, and tasks to execute in order to build the targets. Ant libraries are bundled with WebLogic Server to make it easier for our customers to build Java applications out of the box.
To use Ant, you must first set your environment by executing either the
setExamplesEnv.cmd (Windows) or
setExamplesEnv.sh (UNIX) commands located in the
\samples\domains\wl_server directory, where
WL_SERVER is your WebLogic Server installation directory.
For a complete explanation of ant capabilities, see:
The Apache Jakarta Web site publishes online documentation for only the most current version of Ant, which might be different from the version of Ant that is bundled with WebLogic Server. Use the following command, after setting your WebLogic environment, to determine the version of Ant bundled with WebLogic Server:
prompt> ant -version
To view the documentation for a specific version of Ant, such as the version included with WebLogic Server, download the Ant zip file from
http://archive.apache.org/dist/ant/binaries/ and extract the documentation.
For more information on using Ant to compile your cross-platform scripts or using cross-platform scripts to create XML scripts that can be processed by Ant, refer to any of the WebLogic Server examples, such as
Also refer to the following WebLogic Server documentation on building examples using Ant:
You can use your own version of Ant if the one bundled with WebLogic Server is not adequate for your purposes. To determine the version of Ant that is bundled with WebLogic Server, run the following command after setting your WebLogic environment:
prompt> ant -version
If you plan to use a different version of Ant, you can replace the appropriate JAR file in the
\server\lib\ant directory with an updated version of the file (where
WL_HOME refers to the main WebLogic installation directory, such as
c:\Oracle\Middleware\wlserver_10.x) or add the new file to the front of your CLASSPATH.
By default the environment script allocates a heap size of 128 megabytes to Ant. You can increase or decrease this value for your own projects by setting the
-X option in your local
ANT_OPTS environment variable. For example:
prompt> setenv ANT_OPTS=-Xmx128m
If you want to set the heap size permanently, add or update the
MEM_ARGS variable in the scripts that set your environment, start WebLogic Server, and so on, as shown in the following snippet from a Windows command script that starts a WebLogic Server instance:
set MEM_ARGS=-Xms32m -Xmx200m
See the scripts and commands in
/server/bin for examples of using the
MEM_ARGS variable.
You need a text editor to edit Java source files, configuration files, HTML or XML pages, and JavaServer Pages. An editor that gracefully handles Windows and UNIX line-ending differences is preferred, but there are no other special requirements for your editor. You can edit HTML or XML pages and JavaServer Pages with a plain text editor, or use a Web page editor such as Dreamweaver. For XML pages, you can also use an enterprise-level IDE with DTD validation or another development tool that supports editing of XML files.
Nearly all WebLogic Server applications require a database system. You can use any DBMS that you can access with a standard JDBC driver, but services such as WebLogic Java Message Service (JMS) require a supported JDBC driver for Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, or IBM DB2. Refer to Oracle Fusion Middleware Supported System Configurations at
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/ias/downloads/fusion-certification-100350.html to find out about supported database systems and JDBC drivers.
Most Java EE applications are designed to be executed by Web browser clients. WebLogic Server supports the HTTP 1.1 specification and is tested with current versions of the Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers.
When you write requirements for your application, note which Web browser versions you will support. In your test plans, include testing plans for each supported version. Be explicit about version numbers and browser configurations. Will your application support Secure Socket Layers (SSL) protocol? Test alternative security settings in the browser so that you can tell your users what choices you support.
If your application uses applets, it is especially important to test browser configurations you want to support because of differences in the JVMs embedded in various browsers. One solution is to require users to install the Java plug-in so that everyone has the same Java run-time version.
You can use third-party software products to enhance your WebLogic Server development environment. See "WebLogic Developer Tools Resources" at
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/index.html, which provides developer tools information for products that support the application servers.
Check with the software vendor to verify software compatibility with your platform and WebLogic Server version.


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About No Gap Dentists:
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Contact Details:
Contact Name: Paulo Pinho
Ground Floor, 350 Collins Street,
Melbourne, VIC,
Australia – 3000
Phone Number: 1300 320 881


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The 'Lost' Diary -- What They Died For
Welcome back to another edition of The "Lost" Diary.
As we get close to the end, I've been thinking a lot about what I've always said is the difference between "The Wire" and "The Sopranos" -- confidence vs. arrogance. For "Lost" to -- in its second to last episode -- do an entire hour without any of its many characters appearing in the episode … well, to quote Alec Baldwin, takes brass balls. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are either the most masterful storytellers of our time … or giant a-holes. I'm not sure if there is an in-between.
Either way, this is the last episode before the finale. Time flies. Let's roll …
9:00 -- During the "Previously on Lost" segment -- where they show Jin and Sun dying -- I was hoping ABC would edit in a line from either one of them about their soon-to-be orphaned child. Nope, didn't happen.
9:01 -- The gash on Jack's neck makes him look like Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia."
9:02 -- According the musical score, we are watching an emotional scene between Jack, his son, and Claire.
9:03 -- Kate brings up the fact that Jin and Sun had a kid (bout time someone did) while Jack sews up her bullet wound. I wonder if Sawyer feels guilty about what happened or if he thinks it wasn't his fault?
9:06 -- Judging by the blank stare he's got going on now, I'd say Sawyer does actually feel guilty.
9:07 -- One minute there's a parking lot full of people, as Mr. Locke returns to school, and the next Desmond can beat Ben senseless and no one sees a thing. But he flashed, so mission accomplished.
9:08 -- "I lived in these houses 30 years before you did, otherwise known as last week." -- Miles. Good to see the Ben/Miles/Richard contingent back. Off the top of my head, I'd say Miles has to make the list of Top 10 Most Underutilized Characters in TV History list.
9:09 -- "Thank you, Richard." -- Ben
9:10 -- It's been so long, I kinda forgot -- Ben used to have some sort of control over the Black Smoke Monster.
9:11 -- "May I come in?" -- Widmore
9:16 -- Seems Jacob summoned Widmore to the island, which makes Ben a tad jealous.
9:17 -- "While he was beating me, I think I … saw something." -- Ben
9:18 -- "The man told me he wasn't trying to hurt you, he was trying to get you to let go. And for some reason … I believed him." -- Ben
9:19 -- Desmond turned himself in to the police for running over Locke and beating up Ben. Not quite how I would have played it, but then again …
9:20 -- … how else was he supposed to get to Kate and Sayid?
9:21 -- "I killed them, didn't I?" -- Sawyer. Yes, yes you did.
9:22 -- Little Jacob is back and he wants the ashes Hurley took from Ilana.
9:23 -- "You should get your friends. We're very close to the end, Hugo." -- Jacob
9:27 -- Ben is staging a last stand, Richard is kind of on board, and MIles is getting ready to run away through the jungle. Minor prediction: Miles doesn't live to see the finale.
9:28 -- Um, what I meant to say is that Richard doesn't make it to the finale. Hang on a second while I edit that last entry.
9:29 -- "Just the man I was looking for." -- Not Locke
9:30 -- Old school Ben Linus -- selling out Charles Widmore to Not Locke. Good to see he got his balls back from Jacob's purse. It's a satchel!
9:31 -- I knew Rousseau was gonna be there and yet … damn it, when it did get so dusty in here?
9:32 -- Rousseau might be the only woman on the show who looks better off the island than on it.
9:33 -- "Sorry Charles." -- Ben. RIP Zoe.
9:34 -- "Soon this will all be over. I'll get what I want and I'll finally leave this island. And when I do, the first thing I am going to do … is kill your daughter, Penny." -- Not Locke.
9:35 -- "He doesn't get to save his daughter." -- Ben. RIP Widmore.
9:36 -- "I want to know that Sun and Jin and Sayid didn't die for nothing." -- Kate. Apparently Kate didn't read the guide info -- the episode is called "What They Died For." Just be patient Kate, we're gonna find out in the next 24 minutes.
9:37 -- "Come and sit down and I'll tell you what they died for." -- Jacob. See???
9:43 -- "What if all this … maybe this happening for a reason. Maybe you're supposed to fix me." -- Locke
9:44 -- "I want to fix you, Mr. Locke. But I think you're mistaking coincidence for fate." -- Jack
9:45 -- Jacob is trying to explain to everyone what he did and why he brought them to the island. Not sure there's enough time to explain all that.
9:46 -- "I chose you because you were like me. You were all alone. You were all looking for something you couldn't find out there. I chose you because you needed this place as much as it needed you." -- Jacob
9:47 -- "What is the job?" -- Jack
9:48 -- "I want you to have the one thing I was never given … a choice." -- Jacob
9:49 -- "I'll do it. This is why I'm here. This is what I am supposed to do." -- Jack
9:54 -- "I thought that guy had a God complex before." -- Sawyer
9:55 -- Jacob is performing the wine ceremony, for lack of a better term, but this time with some water in the stream. Kinda liked it better when I thought there was magic wine.
9:56 -- "Now you're like me." -- Jacob
9:57 -- "After I set you free, I'm going to ask each of you to do something and you're going to have to promise me you'll do it." -- Desmond.
9:58 -- "Dude, you didn't tell me Ana Lucia was gonna be here." -- Hurley. Unfortunately, I spotted Michelle Rodriguez's name in the credits, so I knew she was going to be here.
9:59 -- "If you can turn yourself into smoke whenever you want, why do you bother walking?" -- Ben. Best. Question. Ever.
10:01 -- "Because I'm gonna find Desmond and he's gonna help me do the one thing I could never do myself. I'm gonna destroy the island." -- Not Locke
There was no way in the world the series finale of "Lost" wasn't going to be the most anticipated episode of television of my life. I'd been saying all season long that I don't feel like I can even begin to rank "Lost" among my favorite shows of all-time until the series ends -- how it ends will determine how I remember all six seasons … right or wrong.
But now I feel that way more than ever. The last two weeks -- and the more I think about it this entire season (especially the flash-sideways universe) -- has been leading up to this finale. I can't imagine that any show in history has had more riding on an episode.
Would you have it any other way?
"Lost" has been indefinable from the beginning. It has broken every mold and transformed what is capable on television. Before "Lost," did you ever believe a television show could send you to the Internet scouring for clues? Did you ever think you'd spend an entire next day talking about a television show with friends?
Did you ever imagine that a television show would actually make you afraid of missing it? I can't miss "Lost" tonight or else I can't talk to anyone tomorrow and I pretty much have to avoid the Internet in its entirety!
Other television is like high school -- you can show up to class, half-ass the homework, not study for a second and still probably get a B on the final.
"Lost" is college -- you have to take copious notes in class, do all the reading, and join a study group (*ahem Lost Diary) or risk failing.
I give tonight's episode a B-. The episode before a season finale is supposed to get me excited for the finale. That is tripled when it's a series finale and trillioned (made up word) when it's the series finale of "Lost." I only give this a B- because while I am still super excited for Sunday, this episode didn't ratchet that up a notch, but it didn't take it down a level either. This episode simply held down the fort.


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BARRINGTON, R.I. (WJAR) — Claire's is pulling 17 products off store shelves, after a Barrington family discovered asbestos in their 6-year-old daughter's makeup.
The make-up was purchased at store in the Providence Place Mall, but the family warns this is a nationwide concern.
It was just a few weeks ago when Kristi Warner received the heartbreaking phone call.
"I physically sank," said Warner. "I ended up sitting on the ground, just trying to wrap my head around how something like that could end up in our home."
Warner had been concerned about the ingredients in her 6-year-old daughter Mackenzie's glitter makeup kit, purchased at Claire's inside Providence Place. The Barrington mom, who works for Deaton Law Firm in East Providence, mailed the makeup to an independent lab in North Carolina.
"In the work that we do, we've come across contaminated cosmetics, but you just assume that a children's product would be safe," said Warner.
Warner said Mackenzie's makeup wasn't.
Test results revealed tremolite asbestos, which is a toxic, cancer-causing material.
Exposure to asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma. It is 100 percent fatal.
"Her response was, 'Am I going to die?" said Warner. "There's no right answer to that because I don't want to lie to her."
Concerned other kids might be exposed, Kristi and her boss John Deaton purchased 17 more Claire makeup products from nine different states.
"This is unusual, so let's get multiple jurisdictions, multiple states, multiple products and let's see how that results," said Deaton.
The results weren't good.
Sean Fitzgerald of Scientific Analytical Institute, the scientist who conducted the tests, told NBC 10 he was shocked by how pervasive the results were. He found tremolite asbestos in every single product.
"The fact that the majority of the products came from the store shelves in the last two weeks means that there are other children being exposed," said Warner.
Claire's issued a response Friday afternoon.
"As a result of today's inquiry from WJAR-TV, we have taken the precautionary measure of pulling the items in question from sale, and will be conducting an immediate investigation into the alleged issues," the statement noted.
The products are being pulled from stores, but it's important to make sure this makeup isn't already in your home.
Attached are pictures of all 17 products that tested positive for tremolite asbestos.


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Recipes you may like:
Kitchen Sink Cookies
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Fries
Hot Chocolate Cookies
S'mores Brownie CookiesTime
Prep: 20 minutes
Chilling: 2 to 3 hours
Baking 10 to 12 minutes
Ingredients1 cup Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Granulated Cane Sugar
1/2 cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup Dutch Cocoa Powder
1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
1 teaspoon Fine Sea Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Espresso Powder or Brewed Coffee, optional
2 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
1 cup Course Graham Cracker Crumbs, 1 1/2 sleeves
1 cup Mini Marshmallows
1 cup Chocolate Chunks or Mini Milk Chocolate Candy Bars
1. In a food processor or in a zip lock bag, pulse graham crackers to a coarse crumb or crush to a coarse crumb.
2. In a medium sauce pan, melt butter until lightly golden brown. Add butter to cane sugar, brown sugar, chocolate chips and 1/4 cup cocoa powder, let sit for 5 minutes or until chocolate is melted.
3. Whisk in eggs and vanilla until slightly light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Sift in flour, sea salt, baking soda, baking powder and coffee. Fold in course graham cracker crumbs and mini marshmallows.
4. Cover bowl and chill for at least 2 to 3 hours.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Scoop out 2 to 3 tablespoons of cookie dough. Press in extra marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate pieces into the cookies. Bake in the oven for 12 to 14 minutes.
6. Let the cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a wired rack to cool completely. Store in a cool ahead area so the chocolate doesn't melt.


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When Dakota Johnson was a mere 16 years old, in 2006, she was asked by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to be a Miss Golden Globe. Anyone who's watched the annual awards ceremony will recall these young, glittering figures. They gracefully hand out statuettes to winners, smiling and gliding across the stage before they disappear behind a curtain. Johnson's mother, Melanie Griffith, had been a Miss Golden Globe, in 1975. So it was like the passing of a baton, in a way. An honor, no sweat. Until Johnson, now 23, had to tell Harrison Ford that he was in the shot.
"It was so scary," says Johnson. Why would I ever go up to Harrison Ford and say, 'You can't stand there; you have to stand behind this line.' His nose was sticking into the side of the camera. I was afraid to touch his elbow because he was holding a drink. I was freaking out. He didn't give a f- – – at all. It was an existential crisis for me."
All these years later, Johnson is starring in her own sitcom, Fox's "Ben and Kate," the touching and funny story of a single mother (Johnson), who has to raise two "children" — her daughter, Maddie, and her older brother, Ben (Nat Faxon), the kind of bumbling misfit who complicates every situation he's in. One recent episode found Ben making a mess of Kate's admission that she used a false address to keep Maddie in a better school district. Even though things were heading south, Ben managed to smooth things over with the principal. There's a freshness to the writing that makes this show one of the surprises of the fall season. It has already received a full-season pickup from Fox.
"It's awesome," says Johnson, who's on set, staving off a cold with a lunchtime bowl of soup from a nearby Ralph's supermarket. "It's a big relief. The show's funny and sweet, and I have an amazing cast."
Playing the straight woman to Faxon's Ben requires her to keep it together during their banter. It's not always possible.
"When we're doing a lot of improving, it's sometimes weird to rein it in," she says. "We're really good at playing off each other. And I can tell what's coming."
Johnson has experience dealing with the antics of siblings (she has older brothers and younger brothers and sisters), but playing a mom threw her for a loop.
"It makes me feel old. It's nice to get home at the end of the day and not have a kid," she says. "I was even mentally prepared for playing a mom. This is the kind of thing where I get to have a really different sort of relationship with my kid. The characters are friends. That's so different from what you see on TV. It's usually the mom yelling at the kid and the kid's getting into trouble."
The kid, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, knocks her out, though. "She's an incredibly smart child. The minute they call action, she's working," she says. "It's really cool to watch her grow physically and become more comfortable, worrying if something she does or says looks stupid. I will help her as much as I can to not have that feeling."
Johnson's dad, Don, starred in two long-running series, "Miami Vice" on NBC and "Nash Bridges" on CBS, but did not offer advice on handling the workload.
"There's no advice anybody can give you at all. It's really personal to each actor," she says. "It's insane. While people are watching one episode, we're filming five more episodes. There are a few bits that were filmed the day before the show came on the air. It's an insanely physically taxing job."
Johnson is looking forward to Kate getting a little wild as the season progresses and she confirms that the she will have a boyfriend, played by Geoff Stults. "He comes on in Episode 5. He's Will, the hunky neighbor," she says.
While Kate's social life is looking up, Johnson is acclimating herself to the grind of successful TV series. When she has her upcoming Christmas break, she says she will be calling the friends that remember her and saying, "I'm so sorry I didn't call you back for 5 months."
Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., Fox
"Revolution": worth watching
There was every sign that NBC's "Revolution" could have been another high-tech disaster like last season's "Terra Nova." Both are set in a post-apocalyptic future, both rely on green screens, and both come from high-pedigree filmmakers – "Terra Nova" from Steven Spielberg and "Revolution" from J.J. Abrams ("Star Trek") and Jon Favreau ("The Avengers").
But "Revolution" is a well-plotted thrill ride with twists, turns and surprises that come about every five minutes. The show tells a story on two tracks – one about a power-free future, the other about what happened right after the power went out. The potential for utter confusion was great, but under the sure hand of executive producer Eric Kripke, things get all the more interesting.
Billy Burke (at far left, with Giancarlo Esposito) stars as the swashbuckling Miles, former architect of the Monroe militia and a sword-swinging badass. If the show has one weak link so far, it's that Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos), Miles' niece and the show's central character, is so annoying. Still, "Revolution" is sprinkled with the snarky humor that made superhero movies like Favreau's "Iron Man" so popular, and it works just as well here.
All of that explains why "Revolution" is the season's highest-rated new show, averaging nearly 9 million viewers on Monday nights at 10. — Paige Albiniak
"Go On": It's actually funny
"Go On' is this fall's highest-rated new comedy, averaging more than 6 million viewers on Tuesday nights on NBC.
As popular sports-talk radio host, Ryan King, whose wife was killed in a car accident, Matthew Perry (below) proves he can carry his own show. "Go On" is about watching oddballs become friends, even though what all seem to have in common is that they've all lost someone close to them. The show finds a balance between quirky, touching and laugh-out-loud funny. Like TV's most successful sitcoms, "Go On tell hilarious stories about people we really care about. — PA
"Nashville": so good/"Vegas": so bad
"Vegas," starring Michael Chiklis (below), is so sloppily done that there are satellite dishes on top of McMansions in what is supposed to be 1960s Las Vegas. Worse, the motorcycle gangs have "Sons of Anarchy" hair and outfits! It's also so badly written, it's painful.
"Nashville," on the other hand, is pitch-perfect, with music to match. Connie Britton is tough and tender as Rayna James, a country-music superstar who is about to be eclipsed by a pop princess, played to vixenish perfection by Hayden Panettiere. — Linda Stasi
Demi Lovato on "The X Factor"
The 20-year-old pop princess has become the one who can go toe to toe with the intimidating Simon Cowell. Who knew? Lovato (below), whose legions of fans are known as Lovatnicks, is a Disney star — that's code for a sappy and sweet preteen idol.But in the past two years her image changed, as she made tabloid headlines for an eating disorder. She went to rehab and then did a TV confessional about her other secrets, like self-mutilation, being bullied and being diagnosed as bipolar. This took guts. She took that moxie to Cowell's front door. Watch how she stands up to him, how acerbic she can be as a judge, and also how compassionate. When a contestant cried about being bullied, Lovato ran on- stage to hug her. And it was believable. — Mary Murphy


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* The Miz kicks off RAW by announcing that Vickie Guerrero has declared that tonight's show will have a "Champions Choice" theme, with "all" titles on the line tonight (except for CM Punk's WWE title) and the champions getting to pick their opponents.
* The Miz hosts MizTV with his guest, John Cena. Cena starts talking about the holiday season but is interrupted by Team Rhodes Scholars, Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow. Cena points out that Washington Redskins quarterback RGIII, who was featured on WWE RAW several weeks ago,is in the crowd. It's announced that The Miz and Cena vs. Rhodes Scholars will be taking place next.
* John Cena and The Miz defeated Team Rhodes Scholars in a long match after Cena hit Sandow with the Attitude Adjustment and got the pin.
* United States Champion Antonio Cesaro comes out and cuts a standard anti-American promo. The opponent he decides to defend the US Championship against tonight is none other than: WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter.
* US Champion Antonio Cesaro defeats Sgt. Slaughter after hitting him with the Neutralizer. After the match, Cesaro hit Slaughter with a second Neutralizer to add insult to injury.
* It's announced that later in the show, there will be a special New Year's Eve toast between Dolph Ziggler and AJ Lee – with John Cena invited to join in on the celebration.
* Later tonight, The Shield will face Ryback in a 3-on-1 handicap match.
* Backstage, Team Hell No announced they will defend the WWE Tag titles against 3MB.
* Kane & Daniel Bryan defeated Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre. Jinder Mahal was at ringside for the match. After their win, Kane & Daniel Bryan mocked 3MB by doing "air guitar" in the ring, which the crowd popped big for.
* WWE Champion CM Punk comes down to the ring, along with Paul Heman and a doctor. The doctor verifies that CM Punk is indeed unable to compete due to injury and x-rays of CM Punk's surgically repaired knee are shown on the Titantron. Punk says that due to the condition of his knee, his doctor won't medically clear him to wrestle Ryback in a TLC match on the January 7th RAW, so the match is off. "No Chance" hits – and out comes WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Vince says it doesn't matter what the doctor says – a TLC Match will take place on January 7th. Vince questions what CM Punk's relationship is with The Shield and Brad Maddox and says that if doctors determine that Punk isn't medically cleared to face Ryback in a TLC match on 1/7, then Paul Heyman will take his place.
* Sheamus defeats Dolph Ziggler by disqualification after The Shield runs down and attacks Sheamus. The Shield stand tall over Sheamus and then exit through the crowd.
* WWE Divas champion Eve Torres comes out and says she wants to defend against Mae Young, who is not there. Kaitlyn comes out and says she'll wrestle in place of Mae Young and winds up attacking Eve in the ring. Eve escapes and runs to the back without a match taking place.
* World Heavyweight champion Big Show defeats Ricardo Rodriguez by disqualification after Alberto Del Rio interfered and attacked Big Show. In a bit of comedy, Del Rio came down to the ring in a suit before the match and Ricardo came out driving a fancy sports car.
* Wade Barrett defeated Kofi Kingston by pinfall to capture the Intercontinental championship for a second time. After the match, Josh Matthews interviewed the new champion. Barrett warned the WWE locker room to watch out for the Barrett Barrage in 2013.
* The Shield vs. Ryback in a 3-on-1 match never officially took place. As Ryback was making his entrance, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns attacked him on the ramp. Sheamus and Randy Orton ran out to make the save and The Shield escaped through the crowd. Ryback, Orton and Sheamus celebrated in the ring.
* Up next is the New Year's Eve toast. Dolph Ziggler came out first in a tuxedo, followed by AJ Lee in a dress and Big E Langston in his wrestling gear. The three of them toasted while showing clips on the Titantron of several moments from 2012 that John Cena would like to forget, including Brock Lesnar attacking him, Big Show delivering a knockout punch and more. Ziggler announces that Cena has been un-invited from the New Year's toast and orders Langston to guard the ring.
As Ziggler begins to make out with AJ, Cena interrupts. Cena admits that he had some tough times in 2012, but that's nothing compared to all the WWE superstars that AJ was romantically linked to this year. Cena talks about all the illegitimate children AJ has with various wrestlers and shows pictures on the Titantron of several babies with the faces of WWE superstars and legends Photoshopped onto the bodies.
Cena announces that he's officially entering himself into the Royal Rumble and promised to win the WWE Championship again in 2013. Cena toasts AJ & Ziggler as what appears to be human waste falls from the arena roof into the ring, covering the heels. AJ & Ziggler freak out as Cena's music hits and the show goes off the air. Quite a way to end the final RAW of 2012.


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It's a low rumble here, there, like a thunderstorm barely heard because it's so far over the horizon that only the cloud tops can be seen, but the words "Windows 8 is Vista" are starting to leave lips and paint pixels.
And that has to scare the you-know-what out of Microsoft.
[ Also on InfoWorld: What do we want? Windows 9 -- sorry, Windows 8. | Windows 8 left you blue? Then check out Windows Red, InfoWorld's plan to fix Microsoft's contested OS. | Microsoft's new direction, the touch interface for tablet and desktop apps, the transition from Windows 7 -- InfoWorld covers all this and more in the Windows 8 Deep Dive PDF special report. | Stay atop key Microsoft technologies in our Technology: Microsoft newsletter. ]
Because to Microsoft, Vista is the bastard child of the Windows family, the one who lost friends' savings in a Ponzi scheme, then fled to Bhutan and its mountains, beyond reach by extradition.
If Windows XP could be called the elderly uncle who worked most his life in the foundry to put his kids through college, if Windows 95 is a fondly-remembered grandmother who once danced with the Rockettes, if Windows 7 is the nephew with a shot at middle management, then Vista is the kin no one wants to talk about.
So to equate Windows 8, the newest member of the clan, with Vista, well, that makes Windows 8 junk, because Vista is the flop that even its closest competitor in the boner sweepstakes, the turn-of-the-century Windows Millennium Edition (shortened by some marketing genius to ME), can sneer at.
The causes of Vista's bad reputation are legion, some unfair. But once a reputation's made, it's almost impossible to rehabilitate. See: Nixon.
Even Microsoft ignores Vista. Search the company's press release archives and you have to go back to April 2008 -- 18 months before its successor showed up -- to find one with the word"Vista" in its title. And that release? About Service Pack 1, a mulligan for the OS.
Windows XP, more than five years older than Vista, has been treated more graciously, garnering a headline as recently as April 2013.
Vista was a failure for Microsoft -- it topped out at a 19 percent user share in October 2009 by Net Applications' reckoning -- less than a fourth of XP's at its height, just 40 percent of where the still-growing Windows 7 stands today. The failure is relative: Apple CEO Tim Cook would gladly break bread with investment pest Carl Icahn for a month of Sundays to have OS X at 19 percent. Still, relative matters.
How did it come to this?
Vista had all kinds of problems, not least that it was late. Originally slated to ship in 2004, three years after XP, it didn't hit retail until Jan. 30, 2007, seven years ago this week. Then there were the device driver issues and ballyhoo over User Account Control (UAC) due to Microsoft's re-architecting the former and trying to stem malware with the latter. It was even the focus of an unsuccessful class-action lawsuit that alleged Microsoft duped consumers into buying "Vista Capable"-labeled PCs that could run only the lowest-level edition, Vista Home Basic, which did not include several key features that Microsoft heavily promoted.
The blame game
To get a feel for what Microsoft thinks of Vista, simply recall that it was the one regret that outbound CEO Steve Ballmer picked from "a lot of mistakes" during a kind of exit interview last August with long-time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet.
"I would say probably the thing I regret most is the, what shall I call it, the loopedy-loo that we did that was sort of Longhorn to Vista," Ballmer told Foley. "I would say that's probably the thing I regret most. And, you know, there are side effects of that when you tie up a big team to do something that doesn't prove out to be as valuable."
With those words, especially his last sentence, Ballmer laid a lot of Microsoft's current problems on Vista's doorstep, implying that the company would not be where it is now -- behind in mobile, staring at a historic slump in personal computers -- if not for Vista, its long development and restart, and ultimately, its failure to deliver what Microsoft promised.
Those kinds of counterfactuals are entertaining to contemplate, but impossible to prove or, of course, disprove. If Vista had not been delayed, not been painted with the botched brush, and if Microsoft had not been distracted by its failure, Ballmer insinuated, Microsoft would be in a much stronger position now.
If Vista had shipped in 2004 and been an incremental advancement of Windows XP, that would have put Windows 7 -- or whatever Microsoft named it -- in customers' hands by 2007 with the company's three-year development cycle of the time. Windows 8 would have come out in 2010, the same year as the iPad, too late for massive changes, even if Microsoft had recognized the threat from tablets.
That wouldn't have helped Microsoft.
By all appearances, Microsoft management didn't light a fire under a Windows suitable for tablets until after Apple launched the iPad in 2010. Microsoft has said it jumped on tablets well before it saw the iPad -- stating it started Windows 8 development before the release of Windows 7 in 2009 -- but that, like a lot of corporate claims, must be taken with some salt. While Microsoft pitched stylus-based slates long before Apple dreamed up the touch-based iPad, it was the latter company that showed everyone that touch and apps appealed to customers, that tablets were not just cool but worthy companions, even substitutes, for PCs.
There's no reason to expect that Microsoft would have gotten there first, and along the way stuck a knife in the personal computer business, no matter what Vista's timeline. That would have meant Windows 9, shipping in 2013, would have been Microsoft's first try at touch.
Learning Vista's lesson
Ballmer's admission that Vista was his greatest regret confirmed what everyone had already known: Microsoft put Vista in its rear-view as quickly as it could, returning to numbers rather than names, and getting a nice bonus to boot. The word "Windows," and thus the brand, was repetitively used by the media, since using "7" for shorthand just didn't work as it had for "Vista" or "XP."
There's talk now that Microsoft will hurry along Windows 9 to put Windows 8 behind it, a logical conclusion assuming the company does see the latter as a failure. Not that it would ever admit as much, just as it never owned up to the Vista fiasco,. It simply pressed on to the next OS, hoping that one that would be accepted. Which it was.
Microsoft sounds like it will take a similar tack with Windows 8's successor: a tweak here, a fix there, but no overhaul. Much of the chatter has focused on a re-emphasis of the desktop by, for instance, restoring a Start menu and making it possible to run "Metro" apps in sizable windows on that desktop. That may not be enough, but it's probably all it can do with the time available.
Microsoft has committed to a faster release cadence, compressing the timeline it had for Windows 7 -- which could be the genesis of an April 2015 launch of Windows 9 instead of in October -- but it may simply not have the resources to do more, or with Windows 8 panned, feel it can wait.
Some have argued that Microsoft cannot rescue Windows' reputation by small steps, as it did with Windows 7. Steve Wildstrom, who writes on Techpinions, summarized the dilemma when he pointed out that while the duality of Windows 8 was the biggest barrier for customers, "It would be a major shock if Microsoft announces that Windows 9 will change the fundamental dual nature of Windows."
The difference in Microsoft's situation, as Wildstrom noted, is the technology landscape. Although customers simply waited out Vista because there was no choice for a general computing OS -- other than a heretical shift to OS X, which only a few took -- today Windows is on the defensive, not the automatic choice of consumers who increasingly choose Android and iOS for PC substitutes.
Enterprises don't have that luxury -- they're too committed to Microsoft's powerful business software to think of leaving Windows -- but they can do what they did before. Wait.
David Smith, a Gartner analyst who follows Microsoft, thinks that's exactly what they will do. "We don't see much interest in Windows 8 in the enterprise, but there's nothing else either," Smith said in a recent interview, even as he cited evidence of increased acceptance of Apple's iOS and OS X. "[Migration] cycles are long in the enterprise, and their next Windows is not going to be 8, and if Microsoft continues its course, as it appears it will, it's not going to be 9 either."
Corporations can theoretically wait out Microsoft until January 2020, when the company will pull the support plug for Windows 7, but in practical terms they would have to move earlier, perhaps by 2017, to have time for a sensible migration. Or if they're fortunate, Microsoft will offer them something less like Windows 8 and more like Windows 7 as a replacement.
"Microsoft's strength in the enterprise is Windows 7, and it's here to stay for a long time," said Smith.
Rock, meet hard place
The solution to Vista was straight-forward: Backtrack on those elements that raised the most ire -- UAC, for example -- and wait while hardware, both the PC and peripherals, caught up.
That does not seem possible this time. With Windows 8 yoked to the Metro-Classic Desktop two-horsed cart, Microsoft faces unpleasant choices no matter what it does. Every move points to additional delays in stressing mobile.
If it salves the wounds some customers say have been inflicted on the desktop, it weakens the radical strategy behind Windows 8, which was to force touch, force Metro, on every customer in the hope that they would see the benefits, then take to new touch-enabled PCs, and -- if Microsoft was lucky -- gravitate to its tablets as demand pushed developers into quickly creating a massive app market.
A reversal like that would not be a defeat, but it would hamper the drive toward touch and mobile -- which in Microsoft's mind are not one and the same -- and put it even further behind in the contest for tablet hearts and minds because customers would perceive Windows 9 as a sop to the past.
It could wait it out, as it did before, until touch-enabled PCs are more widely available at prices customers will pay, or hybrids and 2-in-1s actually sell, then accept that Windows remains king of a no-growth future and hope that the 300 million or so PCs expected to sell each year actually sell.
It could do what some have urged it for years to do, split Windows between consumer and commercial, since the two markets are increasingly divergent anyway. That might mean removing the desktop from what's now known as Windows 8.1, relying on something akin to today's Windows RT, and spinning off the desktop to an enterprise or professional edition that still relies on mouse, keyboard and finer motor skills.
Or ideally, Microsoft, which is filled with smart people, would devise a solution no one on the outside has thought of or advocated as something the company must do.
Which path to take? The third runs counter to the company's continued assertion that consumer and commercial are too intertwined to separate. The fourth is a wildcard. So that leaves the first two, which seem the most likely because companies, like people, have habits.
Perhaps it's a decision that will be left to the new CEO.
"I think Microsoft will continue to tweak the Windows 8 offering," said Gartner's Smith. "There are lots of areas of concern, and Microsoft is nowhere near unassailable, if it ever was. But it's a very strong company in a lot of ways, with talent and resources."
And it has that bastard child, Vista, to use as an example.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed. His email address is email@example.com.
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This story, "If Windows 8 = Vista, what's Microsoft's next move?" was originally published by Computerworld.


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Worn by professionals around the world who work at various levels, medical scrubs are very comfortable to wear. Medical scrubs are available in many colours and they enable a workforce to look smart and presentable. As the people who work in many types of medical fields communicate with the public at all times, it is important that the medical scrubs which they wear suit their actual purpose.
The Many Medical Scrubs Which Can Be Worn
There are several tops that can be bought which match trousers that are already in use. These particular medical scrubs are normally dark or light blue but they are also available in a variety of other colours. Black, purple, green and white are obtainable and can be bought in order to replace tops which are worn by other members of staff. As the people who work in a hospital or a General Practitioners office may already wear a certain colour, any new top which is bought can match what is sported by other medical professionals.
Other medical scrubs can be bought as well, such as scrub suits. Scrub suits which have drawstring trousers are purchasable from many major retailers, as are scrub suits which have boot cut trousers. Long sleeve scrub suits are also available as well. These particular scrub suits are normally worn by medical professionals who specialise in hazardous situations, such as in cold temperatures. As a long sleeve scrub suit helps the body to maintain its temperature, they are very comfortable to wear as well.
Scrub suits should match the environment which they will be worn in. For example, loose scrub suits are not normally sported by surgeons because this can hamper them when performing detailed surgery; choosing a theatre nurses dress for such individuals will enable this suitable item of clothing to offer protection yet not influence the way in which these professionals do their job.
Cherokee Scrub Suits Can Be Worn When Interacting With Children
If staff work in a childrens ward or in another environment which means that they come into contact with young people, wearing Cherokee scrub suits is highly recommended. These scrub suits are available in bright and vibrant colours. Cherokee scrub suits also have various animals and characters on them. Cherokee scrub suits are often worn by midwives because they help to stimulate childrens senses; this is very important because a childs vision can develop as a direct result. Although they normally have short sleeves, Cherokee scrub suits which have long sleeves can also be bought.


text:
All Season – #36465 – Dues $7,182
Paradise Timeshare Resale specializes in the resale of Marriott Vacation Club resorts. Marriott Vacation Club is the leader in the vacation ownership industry.
Marriott Vacation Club Points
They have just rolled out their newest innovation, the Destinations ownership program which is an easy-to-use, Marriott Vacation Club points based approach to vacation ownership that offers you the flexibility, convenience and affordability to take dream vacations year after year.
Flexible points that can be used when you want, where you want and for as long as you want. You can visit any of the 53 Marriott Vacation Club resorts around the world, enjoy access to thousands of Marriott resorts and hotels, and experience exotic safaris, magnificent cruises and more through the Marriott explorer collection.
Marriott Vacation Club® offers an unprecedented — and growing — number of resorts, destinations and vacation experiences for the entire family. As an Owner in the Marriott Vacation Club Destinations™ Ownership Program, you'll enjoy access to incredible experiences and thousands of destinations worldwide, including these popular vacation spots: Costa Rica, Orlando, Pacific Islands, Florida, Hawaii, Europe, Hilton Head Island, Caribbean, California, Las Vegas.
View More Details and Photos >>
- Unit Type: 10,500 Marriott Vacation Club Points
- All Season: Every Year
- Anniversary Date: January 1
- Listing Price: $39,375 = $3.75/point
- Maintenance Fees: $7,182 Annually Plus $270 Marriott Club Fee
Comments: Just listed!
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S2KUK 2022 Calendar Competition 📸 NOW OPEN!
We will be producing another S2KUK Calendar for 2022, so get your best picture out and, submit your photo entry by email!
Please READ and FOLLOW the rules and instructions below - ESPECIALLY the ones in red! (You would not beleive how many people do not send a suitably sized file or haven't named it properly!! PLEASE HELP US! )
DEADLINE 30th OCTOBER 2021
We all want to see great shots of the S2000, so we have standards for submissions.
- Photos need to meet a minimum resolution for print purposes. That minimum is "high resolution" - at least 150 dpi, in tif, png, jpg formats. As a guide, photos should generally be AT LEAST 4-5 MB in size or more.
- ONE ENTRY ONLY per person (so choose wisely) You may if you wish supercede your entry as many times as you want.
- The photo could have been taken BY YOU any time.
- You can obscure license plates if you wish.
- Photos need to be cropped "loose" this is to avoid having some great submissions that we can't use because the image was already cropped too tight to the S2000. Try and leave some space around the S2000 so the image can be cropped to fit the calendar.
- No watermarks allowed.
- Images must be work and family safe.
How to make a submission:
- When you have a photo to submit, rename it with the following format: "Real_Name.jpg" (YOUR ACTUAL NAME not Real_Name.jpg! YES people do this!!)
- Email them to: email@example.com
- Photos have to be emailed for entry. This is your tacit consent that they can be used in the calendar, and on the S2KUK website.
- Submissions not following the criteria above will be rejected without notice so please follow the instructions!
Submission deadline 30th OCTOBER at 23:59 Submissions will then be put on the S2KUK website for voting.
Submissions MUST be EMAILED and THE MIN SIZE and NAMED PROPERLY. If they are not emailed, they are not entered.
- Photos shouldn't just be "driveway" shots, no hose and bucket in the background. You need to be creative, artistic, and unique! At least find a scenic spot to take the pic!
- Lots of people take the ubiquitous 1/4 front or 1/4 rear view, and we can only have so many similar poses in a calendar, so taking the time to do something different and interesting will count toward the submissions.
- The calendar is not for profit, and stresses the love we have for our cars.
By entering this calendar competition you are giving licence to S2KUK (UK S2000 Owners Club) to use your image for publication in the calendar and on the S2KUK website.
IF YOU DO NOT OWN COPYRIGHT of the image - that is if YOU did not take the photograph it will not qualify for the competition.
DO NOT ENTER WITH A PHOTO YOU DID NOT TAKE, as it can have serious consequences if it is published.
By entering a photo to the competition you are agreeing to indemnify UK S2000 Owners Club against any action regarding copyright should you have entered a photo of which you do not own copyright.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 10, 2009)—Stem cells have long been touted as potential cures or treatments for a variety of ailments from paralysis to Parkinson's disease. After all, these cells (found in bone marrow, for instance, and also in human embryos, making their use a subject of much controversy) can potentially turn into a wide variety of cells with specific functions. Or, they can throw off proteins—such as growth factors—that help other cells grow. Stem cells injected into a paralyzed patient's spine, for instance, might help regenerate nerve tissue.
But while the flexibility of these cells is the key to their usefulness, they might not be quite as flexible as we once thought, says Julia Dory Ransohoff, 17, one of 40 finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search here in Washington this week for the competition's final rounds. (We've been on hand to live-Twitter and to profile a few projects, everything from Splenda in drinking water to whether parents should discuss their drinking with their kids to cellulosic ethanol.)
A student at Menlo Atherton High School in Menlo Park, Calif., Ransohoff tested the effectiveness of adult bone marrow stem cells in treating damaged heart tissue following a heart attack. Doing her work in a lab at Stanford University, she discovered that stem cells taken from female donors triggered more of an immune system response—in which the host attacks the transplanted cells—than stem cells taken from male donors. In other words, donor gender matters.
Ransohoff was not expecting these results. First, it wasn't clear that donor gender would matter because of how flexible stem cells are thought to be. But if it did, "I was expecting to find the reverse," she says, because women tend to have better heart health. She thought that perhaps whatever gives women's hearts a slight protection against heart attacks might transfer with the transplanted stem cells. But it didn't. "We were all very surprised," she says.
She entered her project in the Intel Science Talent Search "on a lark" she says, and since Intel's headquarters are located nearby in Santa Clara, Calif., people from the company actually showed up in person to announce her finalist and semi-finalist status. "They surprised me twice at school," she says.
Also surprising? Getting to meet President Obama on the exact day he announced changes in the federal policy toward embryonic stem cell research, reversing a Bush administration ban on federal funding. On Monday, after talking with reporters about her stem cell project, Ransohoff zipped over to the White House (with her 39 fellow finalists) to talk with Obama. "It was a little surreal," she says. "I felt like I was watching TV." Though her project didn't involve embryonic stem cells, she's thrilled to learn that such cells could be an area for her future research: "I'm excited to be 17 and in a field that's just been released and let out into the open."
See Ransohoff discuss her project in this video.
Photo of Julia Ransohoff by Laura Vanderkam/copyright Scientific American


text:
Shyla was playing video games online with her headset on while chatting it up and talking trash. Her girlfriend Maddy asked her to stop playing, so they could have lunch, but Shyla told her she was too busy. Of course, Maddy got her attention by putting her hand under Shyla's shorts playing with her clit. Like a true gamer, Shyla still tried to concentrate on the video game while getting her pussy played with. But Maddy took off her shorts and began fingering her pussy. Shyla told her guy friend through the headset that Maddy was fingering her sweet pussy, and she heard him jerking off on the other side. After getting her pussy fingered good, she couldn't play the game anymore. Shyla took off the headset, and the girls licked each others pussies and assholes until they came multiple times. It was another great day living together.
Download Maddy Oreilly in 'Finger Licking Good'Download Maddy Oreilly in 'Finger Licking Good'


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First Listen: Suede, 'Bloodsports'
Suede, 'Bloodsports'
Audio for this feature is no longer available.
We're just two months into 2013, and it's already been a huge year for living legends of British pop. David Bowie bucked the exaggerated reports of his decline with The Next Day, his first album in 10 years. Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine created an Internet frenzy by posting their 22-years-in-the-making m b v online on short notice. Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr released a solo album almost 30 years after we first fell in love with that shimmering black Rickenbacker.
Next to those names, Brett Anderson may sound anonymous, especially to American audiences. But make no mistake: Twenty years ago, there was no bigger band in Britain than Suede, a.k.a. The London Suede in the U.S. Some even credit Anderson's sinewy glam jams with kicking off the Britpop era. The band's first album topped the charts and took home the 1993 Mercury Prize; the rest of the decade didn't turn out so bad, either, with two more No. 1 albums and a handful of Top 10 singles.
It's been 11 years since the last Suede record, so when Anderson announced last year that the band (alas, still without guitarist Bernard Butler) was returning to the studio, there was no reason to expect anything along the lines of Suede or its incredible follow-up Dog Man Star. So it's frankly a little surprising how great Bloodsports sounds — perhaps even better than the comeback albums by Marr, Shields or Bowie, Anderson's thin white role model.
Anderson's New Romantics redux sounds as melodramatic and persuasive as ever on Bloodsports (out March 19), and he can still belt out choruses with the best of them. The opening one-two punch of "Barriers" and "Snowblind" is greatest-hits material, and the rest of the album doesn't lag far behind. "For the Strangers" is raised-lighter-worthy, while "Faultlines" closes Bloodsports on a deliciously defeatist note: "Celebrate! / There is no feeling / for us to feel."
That sentiment isn't entirely true, because for Suede fans, Bloodsports will likely evoke a powerful feeling of relief. It's the best kind of comeback album: one you'll actually want to come back to.


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Immigration Reform
The move to overhaul the nation's immigration system is gaining momentum in Washington, and President Obama has called that "good news." This hour on Focus, we'll talk about the current path to citizenship and the challenges and barriers it presents to immigrants. Guests include Jeffrey Hays, an immigration attorney at Erwin, Martinkus and Cole in Champaign and Ricardo Diaz of the Champaign-Urbana Immigration Forum. We'll also check in with Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post to get an update about what's happening in Washington, and we'll talk with Illinois Public Radio's Statehouse Bureau Chief Amanda Vinicky about changes to Illinois' immigrant driver's license policy.
Do you think undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay? What changes should be made to the US's immigration policies? Join the conversation on Facebook at www.facebook.com/focus580 or on Twitter @Focus580.


text: An international team of researchers has uncovered an attack that can compromise encrypted network traffic in a matter of hours.The DROWN (Decrypting RSA with Obsolete and Weakened eNcryption) attack successfully decrypts TLS (transport layer security) sessions by exploiting a vulnerability in the older SSL v2 protocol that exposes private RSA keys. Once again, old cryptography is breaking the security of all online communications.DROWN is different from other attacks against TLS in that it doesn't need servers to be using the older version; the attack will succeed as long as the targeted system supports SSL v2. The cross-protocol attack (CVE-2016-0800) could lead to decryption of any encrypted session using SSL\/TLS protocols as long as the server supports SSL v2 and uses RSA key exchange, the researchers said in their technical paper.By making repeated SSL v2 connection requests, researchers uncovered bits of information about the server's private RSA key. After enough requests, researchers were able to obtain the private key to decode the TLS sessions. The attack scope widens if the organization reuses that private RSA key across servers, even if different certificates are used.SSL v2, released in 1995 and retired less than a year later due to crippling weaknesses, is old enough that it is unlikely anyone is still using this version. Browsers and email clients don't support SSL v2, but many servers and networking devices do. If a computer specifically requested to establish a SSL v2 session, those servers would switch to the vulnerable protocol instead of using the default, and more secure, TLS."For many years, the argument for not disabling SSL v2 was that there was no harm because no browsers used it anyway," said\u00a0Ivan Ristic, director of engineering at Qualys.\u00a0DROWN illustrates the folly of that thinking, since obsolete cryptography can be dangerous even if it isn't actively being used. All administrators need to immediately disable SSL v2 on all their servers.The attack is made worse by two additional implementation vulnerabilities in OpenSSL, prompting the project team to release versions 1.0.2g and 1.0.1s to address the issues.The issue with OpenSSLOpenSSL versions 1.0.2, 1.0.1l, 1.0.0q, 0.9.8ze, and earlier have a vulnerability that makes it easier to run a cheaper and more efficient version of DROWN (CVE 2016-0703 and CVE 2016-0704). In the general attack scenario, the attacker targeting a vulnerable server would need to observe 1,000 TLS handshakes, initiate 40,000 SSLv2 connections, and perform 250 offline work to decrypt a 2048-bit RSA TLS cipher-text. On systems running vulnerable versions of OpenSSL, the attacker can obtain a key for one out of 260 TLS connections after running about 17,000 probe connections. The computation takes less than a minute on a fast PC."If the conditions are right, the same SSL v2 flaw can be used for real-time MITM attacks and even against servers that don't support the RSA key exchange at all," Ristic said.OpenSSL versions 1.0.2a, 1.0.1m, 1.0.0r, and 0.9.8zf released in March 2015 and later are not vulnerable to this efficient version of the DROWN attack. The March 2015 update had refactored the code containing the vulnerability in order to fix a different flaw (CVE 2015-0293), and thus had closed the avenue of attack.In the latest update, OpenSSL disabled the SSL v2 protocol by default and removed SSL v2 EXPORT ciphers. Administrators are urged to update vulnerable versions of OpenSSL as soon as possible."Users can avoid this issue by disabling the SSLv2 protocol in all their SSL\/TLS servers, if they've not done so already," the OpenSSL project team wrote in its security advisory.Details on the OpenSSL updateAccording to the OpenSSL advisory, there are some caveats for servers running vulnerable versions of OpenSSL. For servers running OpenSSL 1.0.1r or 1.0.2f or later, just disabling all SSLv2 ciphers is sufficient. For older versions, disabling the ciphers won't be enough because malicious clients can force the server to use SSL v2 using EXPORT ciphers. In those cases, SSL v2 must be disabled as well.The latest version of OpenSSL, 1.0.2g and 1.0.1s, disables SSL v2 at build-time by default. To enable SSL v2, the builds must be manually configured with "enable-ssl2." Even if the the build is manually configured with SSL v2, it will still have to make explicit calls to make it even more difficult to request SSL v2 sessions. The SSLv2 40-bit EXPORT ciphers and SSLv2 56-bit DES are no longer available. Weak ciphers in SSLv3 and up are also disabled.The OpenSSL update also addressed five other low severity vulnerabilities: a double-free bug (CVE 2016-0705) that could lead to a denial-of-service attack or memory corruption for applications receiving DSA private keys from untrusted sources; a memory leak in SRP database lookup method SRP_VBASE_get_by_user (CVE-2016-0798); a side channel attack that makes use of cache-bank conflicts on the Intel Sandy-Bridge microarchitecture (CVE 2016-0702); memory issues in BIO_*printf functions (CVE 2016-0799); and a null pointer deref\/heap corruption in the BN_hex2bn function (CVE 2016 0797).The side-channel attack was reported by the same team of researchers who uncovered DROWN. This attack could also lead to the recovery of RSA keys, but the ability to exploit the attack was "limited as it relies on an attacker who has control of code in a thread running on the same hyper-threaded core ad the victim threat which is performing decryptions," the advisory said.There is a tendency to keep older versions of technology around just-in-case, just in case someone needs to use it, just in case a process relies on it. The thinking that as long as it's not used by default, (or by browsers) is putting the security of online communications at risk. DROWN joins the ranks of the previously discovered Logjam and FREAK in showing that even obsolete protocols can be abused."In the future we must ensure that all obsolete crypto is aggressively removed from all systems. If it's not, it's going to come back to bite us, sooner or later," Ristic said.