5 Reasons we chose BIRT instead of Jasper or JFreeReport

A year ago, I was looking for a way to integrate complex/graphical reporting into our software offerings. I was sure that the way is to find an open source project that has the right kind of license and right kind of technology. Regarding licensing, I wanted to make sure that we should be able to use the reporting engine/technology in our commercial software. I evaluated JasperReport, JFree Report (now part of Pentaho) and of course, BIRT. Here is what I liked in BIRT

1. BIRT is an Eclipse project: This made sure that the project is going to be live and evolving (as an open source project) in the times to come and will become more feature rich as the time passes. We were not afraid that someone is going to close the source directly or indirectly (by selling documentation at high prices) by creating a future version that will require commercial support to do anything but trivial.
2. BIRT uses standard technologies to the maximum level: It uses HTML for layout related things, JavaScript for scripting and CSS for styling! It naturally means we can leverage the existing knowledge that our developers have in creating the kind of reports our customer want. Faster and at lower costs.
3. BIRT offers very good GUI Designer: A graphical designer not just makes your life easier while developing the reports but you can also give it to your customers so that they can also do some small changes that they might need here or there in the report. Most important thing is that BIRT designer is group of plugIns for Eclipse IDE and hence quality of the report designer is excellent.
4. BIRT has a very nice Web Viewer: Yes it comes with nice pre-integrated ajax enabled web viewer that your can run from Tomcat (our favourite) or any other Application Server in less than few minutes.
5. BIRT has quality documentation, sample database, example reports: All this reduced the learning curve to a very affordable level.

If you are looking for a serious reporting solution (open source), I will recommend that you should consider evaluating BIRT. May be you can find the technology you are looking for.

by http://blogs.zaidsoft.com/sz_quadri

Email Alert Management

Project Name: Email Alert Management
Background: As there are many supporting applications tools running, the number of alert and warning from the applications is getting bigger. It is annoying when receiving hundreds of emails per day triggered by alerts from many applications. Therefore we need a mechanism to manage all the alerts.
Aim: To provide an application that will sit between supporting applications and end users so that we can set parameters to filter the alerts, and trigger the alert when the parameters are satisfied. parameters used are number of alert received, alert priority, alert status, notification list
Technology: Linux, Oracle10g, Java, GWT (Google Web Toolkit), Apache Tomcat, Dovecot, JavaMail API
Estimated time: 1 month

undefined reference to typeinfo – C++ error message

This error message made me scratching my head for hour

g++ -o polygon shape.o circle.o square.o polygon.o
circle.o(.gnu.linkonce.r._ZTI6Circle+0x8): undefined reference to `typeinfo for Shape'
square.o(.gnu.linkonce.r._ZTI6Square+0x8): undefined reference to `typeinfo for Shape'
polygon.o(.gnu.linkonce.t._ZN5ShapeC2Ev+0x8): In function `Shape::Shape()':
: undefined reference to `vtable for Shape'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

To fix this?

- undefined reference to typeinfo:
got this line? virtual float getarea() ;
that should read virtual float getarea() {} ;
- undefined reference to vtable means could be there is a virtual function from your interface is not implemented yet.

Uploader app 1.0 part 3 – Open Office Project Management

Manage my  project is not difficult in Ubuntu, i will directly go to open office project management. tasks, resource, calendar, time line, completeness, link task, unlink task you name it, they are all provided in this software. My most favorite feature is ability to export project to a nice HTML format, i once shocked my manager with this tool and he’s wondering and asking me how did you do thatt? what tool are you using? well..you don’t need to ask now, use this tool

Here is the html export output

Singapore Toys and Cosplay 2009

I just bought my new DLSR Canon EOS 500 (T1i) with 18-55mm lens. this event is perfect for me having a field trial. so here they are…please excuse me for being newbie

Uploader app 1.0 part 2 – visio like on ubuntu

Tried finding software like visio on ubuntu, end up with Kivio haha.. trust me using this tool made me miss visio a lot . but as simple & easy i can do. here it is the result.

it is leaked of template diagram, perhaps they should add plugin to import the templates from visio .

Uploader app 1.0 part 1- Kickoff your class diagram w/ Umbrello

This simple class diagram was created using umbrello running on ubuntu. if you want to have it, just type sudo apt-get install umbrello at your console, let ubuntu install it for you. funny, i can find class and interface but not abstract class, i couldn’t change the interface become abstract class either.
okay here it is, uploaderclient class diagram v.1.0.

well i can’t say i’m proud of it, but as simple & easy i can do. fyi, umbrello can export your diagram to xhtml and image format as you see at the image above. you can start coding now happy

Phidget – USB sensing

Phidgets are a set of “plug and play” building blocks for low cost USB sensing and control from your PC. All the USB complexity is taken care of by our robust API. Applications can be developed quickly in .NET, Visual Basic, VBA (Microsoft Access and Excel), LabView, Java, Delphi, C, C++ and Python.

Software API (Java/C++/Python): http://www.phidgets.com/downloads.php?os_id=3
Avaialble Interface Kit: http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=1
Available analog sensors: http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=2

enjoy

Arduino for hardware software hobbies

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

1. Download arduino software
wget http://arduino.googlecode.com/files/arduino-0013-linux2.tgz
2. You will need to install some programs to use Arduino under Linux (the way you do this depends on your distribution):
* sun’s java runtime (jre)
* librxtx-java (Java communication library)
* avr-gcc (aka “gcc-avr”)
o Version 4.3.0 has a major bug which affects multiplication of long int’s. This is the default version in Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10). Check using “avr-gcc –version” and upgrade if necessary.
* avr-libc

3. tar xvf arduino-0013-linux2.tgz
4. ./arduino from command line
5. Where to start: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage
6. Project samples: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/HomePage

enjoy .
- if you love software so much, you’ll create your own hardware- NN

Install LAMP on ubuntu

Lately I’ve been using ubuntu 7.10 for all my projects/daily work.
As a web developer i should have LAMP on my machine and now i would guide you through installing it on yours.

This guide is divided into 3 steps: installing/tesing Apache, PHP and finally MySQL.

Lets start with Apache:
1. Open the terminal (we will be using it through most of my guide) from Applications > Accessories > Terminal
2. Install apache2 using apt-get by typing the following

sudo apt-get install apache2

Note that you should know the root password.

Now everything should be downloaded and installed automatically.
To start/stop apache2 write:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop

Your www folder should be in: /var/www/

If everything is OK you should see an ordinary HTML page when you type: http://localhost in your firefox browser

Finished with Apache ? lets conquer PHP:

1. Also in terminal write:

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

or any php version you like
2. restart apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

This is it for PHP Wanna test it ? Just create an ordinary PHP page in /var/www/ and run it.

Example:

sudo gedit /var/www/test.php

and write in it: < ?php echo “Hello World”; ?>

Now run it by typing http://localhost/test.php in firefox… You should see your ” Hello World ”

66 % is over, lets continue to installing MySQL:
1. Again and again in terminal execute:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

2. (optional) If you are running a server you should probably bind your address by editing bind-address in /etc/mysql/my.cnf and replacing its value (127.0.0.1) by your IP address
3. set your root password (although mysql should ask you about that when installing)

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR ‘root’@’localhost’ = PASSWORD(’xxxxxx’);

4. Try running it

mysql -uroot -pxxx

where xxx is your password.
Note: You can install PHPMyAdmin for a graphical user interface of MySQL by executing

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin

5. restart apache for the last time

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Congratulions your LAMP system is installed and running Happy Coding

//Jo

UPDATE:
Due to the large number of people emailing about installing/running phpmyadmin.
Do the following:

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

The phpmyadmin configuration file will be installed in: /etc/phpmyadmin
Now you will have to edit the apache config file by typing

sudo vi /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

and include the following line:

Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Another issue was making mysql run with php5
First install these packages:

sudo apt-get install php5-mysql mysql-client

then edit php.ini and add to it this line : ” extensions=mysql.so” if it isnt already there

sudo vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Hope this helps

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