Author: techworkshop

Internet Banking – The Pros And Cons

Over the last decade, millions of people in India have adopted online banking as their preferred method of conducting financial transactions. This way of banking has become quite popular because to the convenience with which one can monitor their account, make payments online, and transfer money between accounts. This is especially true for Indians who are always pressed for time to physically visit the bank.

Online banking also has several non-transactional functions that are very useful. Despite its convenience, however, this way of banking has a few drawbacks. These must be understood to secure your funds and avoid issues in the future.

Key Benefits of Internet Banking

Customers who choose internet banking over traditional branch office visits are eligible for different benefits.

Services

Technology has made it extremely simple for both the bank and the customer to access many services online. Financial planning capabilities, functional budgeting and forecasting tools, loan calculators, investment analysis tools, and equity trading platforms are among the services provided. These are available on the bank’s website as simple applications. Furthermore, most banks offer online tax forms and tax preparation services.

Convenience

Convinience is the most promising advantage that outweighs any shortcomings of internet banking. Making transactions and payments at the click of a button from the comfort of your own home or office is a convenience that no one wants to give up. Keeping track of your accounts via the internet is becoming faster and more convenient than going to the bank. Even non-transactional services, such as ordering cheque-books online, updating accounts, enquiring about interest rates on various financial products, and so on, are much easier to access via the internet.

Mobility 

In recent years, internet banking has taken a stride forward with the evolution of mobile internet banking. Internet banking provides the consumer with unrestricted mobility, allowing you to conduct financial transactions even when on the move.

Another significant advantage of internet banking is that it is environmentally friendly. It saves paper and reduces pollution by eliminating the need for individuals to travel physically and emitting no emissions.

Better Rates

Banks stand to benefit from the adoption of internet banking because it requires less physical effort on their part. The requirement to expand office space and hire more employees to deal with clients is reduced drastically. The banks benefit financially as a result of this. Also, a part of the savings can be passed on to consumers by higher deposit rates and lower lending rates. To encourage internet banking, most banks provide no-deposit or low-deposit accounts. They also have reduced penalties for taking money out of Fixed Deposits early.

Drawbacks of Internet Banking

However, the current trend of exclusively using the online mode has a few pitfalls. This may prove costly in the long run unless guarded against from the beginning.

Security

Security is the most serious flaw in the internet banking method, and you must avoid it at all costs. Even though your account is protected by a variety of sophisticated encryption technologies, there is always the risk of hacking by criminal forces in the cyber world.

On the internet, hacker attacks, phishing, malware, and other forms of unauthorized behaviour are all too frequent. If you only use the internet for banking, identity theft is another major risk. To combat identity theft, most banks have made it essential to post scanned copies of approved checks online. When creating an account and before using online banking services, you should review the bank’s security rules and precautions.

Online banking is a significant move in the right direction as far as the convenience of the customer as well as the banker is concerned. But it must be applied with adequate precaution to avoid falling prey to unscrupulous elements scouring the internet.

Relationships

Online transactions take a toll on the relationship with the banker which the traditional visit to the branch office used to foster. Personal relationships with the staff at the banks come in handy when requesting faster loan approvals or a special service which may no longer be available to the public. The manager has many discretionary powers. These include waiving penal interest or service fees. Additionally, personal contact also meant that the banker would provide essential financial advice and insights which are beneficial to the customer.

Complex Transactions

There are many complex transactions which cannot be sorted out unless there is a face to face discussion with the manager. This is not possible through internet banking. Solving specific issues and complaints requires a physical visit to the bank and cannot be achieved through the internet. Online communication is neither clear nor specific enough to help resolve many complex service issues. Certain services such as notarisation and bank signature guarantees cannot be accomplished online.

How to get the last executed query in PHP CodeIgniter?

Are you wanted to get the last executed SQL query in the CodeIgniter project? then, I will help to get the latest query in CodeIgniter

We can get the last executed query using the last_query() function of the inbuilt db class of the CodeIgniter. This function can be used with simple syntax like $this->db->last_query() to see SQL statements of last executed query in PHP CodeIgniter app. You have to simple code that functions after the main query that you wanted to check.

Here is a simple function code which can be added in any controller of the CodeIgniter project and also output for the last query:

Example:

public function check_query_function() {

    $sql = $this->db->get("products");
  
    $query = $this->db->last_query();
   
    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($query);
    exit;
}

Output:

SELECT * FROM `products`

Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS Using .htaccess File

Chrome and Firefox have started showing insecure warnings to the visitors on websites without SSL certificates. Therefore, using an SSL-encrypted connection for safety, accessibility or PCI compliance reasons is necessary. For SSL-encryption, buy SSL certificates and install them to your websites.

But, installing SSL certificates will not show secure, you should also redirect all your HTTP traffic to HTTPS. In order to force your web traffic to use HTTPS, edit the codes in the .htaccess file. Before we move onto redirecting HTTP to HTTPS, here’s how you can edit .htaccess file. If you already know skip to Redirection steps.

Editing .htaccess File

There are instructions/directives in the .htaccess file that tell the server how to act in certain scenarios and directly affects how your website functions. Common directives in .htaccess file:

  • Redirects
  • Rewriting URLs

Ways to edit an .htaccess file:

  1. Edit the file on your computer and upload it to the server using FTP.
  2. Use “Edit” mode in FTP program that allows you to edit a file remotely.
  3. Use a text editor and SSH to edit the file.
  4. Use the File Manager in cPanel to edit the file.

Editing .htaccess in cPanel File Manager

Note: Backup your website in case something goes wrong.

  1. Login to cPanel
  2. Files > File Manager > Document Root for:
  3. Now select the domain name you want to access
  4. Check “Show Hidden Files (dotfiles)”
  5. Click “Go”
  6. After a new tab or window opens, look for the .htaccess file.
  7. Right click on the .htaccess file and click on “Code Edit” on the menu.
  8. A dialogue box may pop up asking about encoding. Click “Edit” button to continue.
  9. Edit the file
  10. “Save Changes” when done.
  11. Test your website to make sure it is done correctly. In case, there is an error, restore to the previous version and try again.
  12. Once you are done, click “Close” to close the window.

Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS

1. Redirect All Web Traffic

If you have existing code in your .htaccess, add the following:

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]

2. Redirect Only a Specific Domain

For redirecting a specific domain to use HTTPS, add the following:

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com [NC]RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R,L]

3. Redirect Only a Specific Folder

Redirecting to HTTPS on a specific folder, add the following:

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} folder RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.yourdomain.com/folder/$1 [R,L]

Note: Replace “yourdomain” with your actual domain name wherever required. Also, in case of the folder, replace /folder with the actual folder name.

Think it was useful? Share this article to help them come on HTTPS

Autostart Glassfish on startup in Ubuntu

To make the Glassfish Server auto start with startup, we need to setting up an init script, which helps us to manage all Glassfish Server startup events easily. And also make Glassfish start up automatically whenever Ubuntu is rebooting.

This script file is glassfish to be created at /etc/init.d/. For managing all Glassfish Server startup events, it ships with the asadmin tool. Use this tool in the startup script as follows,

  1. Create or edit glassfish file sudo nano /etc/init.d/glassfish
  2. Paste the following lines in the file #!/bin/sh #to prevent some possible problems export AS_JAVA=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0 GLASSFISHPATH=/home/glassfish/bin case “$1” in start) echo “starting glassfish from $GLASSFISHPATH” sudo -u glassfish $GLASSFISHPATH/asadmin start-domain domain1 ;; restart) $0 stop $0 start ;; stop) echo “stopping glassfish from $GLASSFISHPATH” sudo -u glassfish $GLASSFISHPATH/asadmin stop-domain domain1 ;; *) echo $”usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}” exit 3 ;; esac :

Now, glassfish startup script is created. We need to add this file in startup to make Glassfish Server autostart during Ubuntu startup. Follow these steps,

  1. Make the startup script file executable sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/glassfish
  2. Add this file to Ubuntu startup boot sudo update-rc.d glassfish defaults

That’s it. Now, restart Ubuntu and check if it really autostart the Glassfish Server.

You can also manage Glassfish Server startup events as follows,

  • Start the server /etc/init.d/glassfish start
  • Stop the server /etc/init.d/glassfish stop
  • Restart the server /etc/init.d/glassfish restart  

Accessing PostgreSQL via SSH Putty tunnel

To close the port 5432 for any traffic or don’t want to configure PostgreSQL to listen to any remote traffic, use SSH Tunneling to make a remote connection to the PostgreSQL instance at AWS.

Follow these steps to connect PostgreSQL using SSH Tunneling at AWS:

  1. Open PuTTY. Setup server session in Putty.
  2. Go to Connection > SSH > Tunnels
  3. Enter 8000 in the Source Port field.
  4. Enter 127.0.0.1:5432 in the Destination field.
  5. Click the “Add” button.
  6. Go back to Session, and save, then click “Open” to connect.
  7. This opens a terminal window. After connection leaves that alone.
  8. Open pgAdmin and add a connection.
  9. Enter localhost in the Host field and 8000  in the Port field.
  10. Specify a Name for the connection, and the username and password. Click OK.
What is it doing? PuTTY is intercepting communications sent from pgAdmin to localhost:8000. The information is transferred across the internet via SSH, on port 22. When it arrives there, the SSH server sends the information on to PostgreSQL via port 5432. As far as PostgreSQL knows, the traffic came in locally, on the correct port.