wiki wiki wiki

Every time I have to do some team orientated document creation work I think of some kind of software more comfortable for collaborative work than MS Word. And each time I stumble upon wiki software. Wikipedia is probably the best wiki (and the power of the crowd) example. A good wiki about starting wiki is How_to_start_a_Wiki :). I decided to try a few on my server (php and MySQL as always). Here they are:
MediaWiki
phpWiki
pmWiki.
I’ll let you know about my progress...

Google’s birthday

I always thought, that Google’s birthday is September 7, 1998. But look at their logo today...

Flash. Extending standart component

Today one of our coworkers encountered an interesting problem. He was trying to extend button class (from Macromedia v2 components) with custom design and functionality. And he failed at first. Because it not obvious stated, I guess, in product documentation, that “Every visual component should have a boundingBox symbol“ (that was his problem). Anyway before doing something it is necessary spending some time for reading about it. Even if you feel being expert…

http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/buildtest_comp.html
link

http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/mx2004/main_7_2/00003080.html
link

http://www.person13.com/articles/components/creatingcomponents.html
link

Few nice flash links

Here are a few links, which i found worthy as nice flash examples:

http://members.thai.net/sinthai/room.htm

http://zoom.elements-network.de/zoom.htm

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

OpenSource issue management (Bug tracking) systems

Of course there are lots of free software designed for bug tracking. Some are more convenient, some are less. For small projects usually excel does the trick :) Few days ago I understood, that it is time to use some more specific system than MS Excel. At first I tried to figure out some specific realization properties I wanted new system to have (because required functionality was already obvious). Web-based user interface of course. Php and MySql would be preferred (why should I install additional software?). What else? Well – if it matters the system is for internal use only. So here are the candidates:

Mantis - Mantis is an easily deployable, web based bugtracker to aid product bug tracking. It requires PHP, MySQL and a web server. It is simpler than Bugzilla and easily editable

Track + Task Tracker - Online project management and issue tracking with team collaboration, user management, multiple access levels, tasks, projects, time tracking, task change history, multiple attachments, overview diagrams, Gantt graphs, reporting language, report client..

Gemini - .NET based bugtracker.

Roundup - Roundup is a simple-to-use and -install issue-tracking system with command-line, web and e-mail interfaces.

BUGS - The Bug Genie - "BUGS - The Bug Genie" is a web-based tool for bug tracking, designed with ease of use as it's foremost goal, but also features a high level of flexibility for developers and administrators. BUGS requires PHP4 (or later) and MySQL.

Bug-A-Boo - Bug tracking system - A database driven, easy to use bug and issue tracking system with support for multiple users, user groups and projects. Themes, i18n, watchlists, internal messaging between developers and fully customization make it round.

There was only one candidate, which suited all the requirements above – Mantis.

P.S. Now I use it and don’t have any complaints

Creating EXCEL files with ASP

There are four main ways to generate excel files with asp.

First one is so called MIME document change – you simply generate html table and change Response.ContentType property to application/vnd.ms-excel. This way is good for simple documents and lets you to save one license (because you don’t need excel on web server). Although you can not create document with several sheets, use formulas, etc.

Second one is to use Excel.Application object (CreateObject("Excel.Application")), which uses Office Automation to create an Excel spreadsheet that you can manipulate through your ASP page. It gives you full access to the many features of Excel, but it’s slow
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dv_wrcore/html/wrgrfexcelapplicationobject.asp

Third way is to use OWC (Office Web Components) - a collection of web components included in Microsoft Office 2000, XP and 2003. They can be plugged into web pages and Visual Basic forms.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;288130
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/051502-1.shtml
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/022801-1.shtml

And fourth way is to use ADO to generate Excel files.
http://dypso.free.fr/tech/generer_excel_avec_ado.php

More one can read here:
http://www.hotscripts.com/ASP/Tips_and_Tutorials/Excel_and_ASP/

I searched for site statistics tools for my blogs today. StatCounter at http://www.statcounter.com/ seems to be a nice one. I think I will try it for some time.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Component Architecture 

I have spent some time today searching for ideas for upgrading some our product. It’s some sort of RIA (rich internet application). By historic reasons we are not working on JAVA platform, so Macromedia Flash seems to be the best candidate. Especially when we have version one done based on that technology. :) The point is, that we have a framework done on AS1 and the greatest dilemma is to port it on AS2 or use version 2 of the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Components. Here are some links I found while trying to get more familiar with Version 2 Component Architecture:

Version 2 Component Architecture

ActionScript2 classes

Skinning Macromedia V2 ProgressBar