From Amman to the Universe
Software
Open Source Initiative in Jordan
Aug 10th
I thought many times before writing this article because I feel that it will open lots of mouths on me. Before 7 years I was very excited about Open Source initiative and how to help spreading the word and educate people about Open Source. Now I guess the picture is little different than before and people at least know what’s open source and there is something exist called open free source software, but I don’t want to be pessimistic, I see all these initiatives are just a shy trial to promote open source and educate people about it. I guess people should be educated about the Open source but with different way, not by using Linux or Open office but by the concept itself. I am a IT person who love Linux and I guess Ubuntu is a step forward to make Linux a user friendly and much easier, but I still think it is still not ready for the end user and not ready also for all IT people. I am now blogging from my Asus netbook that has Windows 7 pre-installed, if I want to install let us say Ubuntu remix to replace Windows 7, I will spend 1 hour to configure my Wifi, I will lose the mutlitouch mouse pad (I guess it is very important for the netbook) also I will lose the mic and the cam. For regular people, what does that mean? Waste of time and they lost some of the functionalities that came with the netbook. If the user tried it once and had a bad experience with it, it will lose interest with open source and will have bad impression about the open source. Students at schools start their 1st steps in Computer world by using windows and MS office changing this culture needs time and efforts. Changing this culture does not mean, to start making fun of others and pretend that company like MS is evil, all commercial companies are evils and they care about money, we have to educate people about open source philosophy and why should I care before start teaching people how to use Linux or open office. People must start their 1st steps in open source world with simpler approach, like browsers. Imagine if Mozilla Firefox has a market share with 60%, this mean all developer will start use open standard and not commercial closed standard. Developer will use or try to use open source technology or force the commercial company to use open standard or support open source standard.
I guess this kind of start will help to promote the open source more than telling people to use Linux or open office. May be the open source browser will influence people to use other open source products like Linux or open office or php, etc.. and make people think for alternatives other than closed or commercial software.
How to make a dynamic PDF File (Flowed Layout)
Aug 10th
I’m a big fan of Adobe Acrobat Forms, I faced different cases in my work, other departments asked me to design a PDF form but a dynamic, the content in the boxes can be expended or shrink depends on the data. In Adobe Acrobat these kind of forms called Flowed layout. I thought it will be a tough task to do such thing, but after playing around with Adobe LiveCycle, it was easy and almost straight forward.
The most important part to decide which pages are flowed layout and which are positioned, and then everything will be in few clicks. All you have to do is to make the Page layout Flowed and wrap all your fields within a subform with a flowed layout, and for each field in the layout tab, select expand to fit property so the field are expandable.
Find this test PDF, it will explain everything also I added how to add more Table rows dynamically into a PDF form.
Note: You have to save your PDF file as Dynamic PDF in order to make it expandable.
Amazon Kindle 2 in Jordan – My Impression
Aug 9th
The internet is full of Amazon Kindle 2 review, tips and tricks and hacks. I will not talk here about these things because Kindle 2 is almost one year out and it is too late to talk about these things. What I am gonna talk about is my first impression and my experience of Kindle in Jordan.
I got a chance to bought the international kindle during my visit to Canada after reducing its price, what’s amazing that the package was delivered before the schedule time to my hotel room, and Amazon calculate all import and tax services for me, I didn’t have to pay anything for the customs and delivery company.
The 3G service work great on the Kindle, I tried to purchase different books from Amazon website and on less than 1 min it was downloaded on my Kindle.
On Heathrow airport, I have to pay for the internet connection, but what I did is using my Kindle browser to check emails and do some tweets all free using the free 3G connection. Don’t expect too much from the kindle browser it remind me with the earliest version of the browsers but it will do the job if you don’t have internet connection.
The problem of the Amazon Kindle in Jordan, the whisper service is working in Jordan as GPRS/EDGE I tried to purchase sample book and also less than 60 sec it was on my Kindle.
I tried to use different PDF files to see how it is practical to read on kindle; of course I used PDF with Arabic font. You can see how Kindle handle the Quran and how amazing and clear view you can have.
I am very satisfied with my kindle, Kindle definitely will change your reading experience and you will enjoy reading without eye strains.
Free Scanning tool for Alfresco
Jan 17th
Are you looking for a free scanning tool for Aflresco, you should try the new Capturesco version 2.0, open source built based on open source projects, no need to any licenses. Built with .Net framework 3.5 using C#. Can capture documents from any scanner with a TWAIN driver using ADF or flatbed by using the Native TWAIN User Interface or direct scanning. All documents can be saved as jpg, gif or Tiff also support single or multipage documents. The tool is still in development stages and testing. Feel free to add your comments and if you have any troubles just contact me and I will try to reply to you soon. Capturesco is a good start point for the developers who’s looking to develop their own customized scanning utility.
You can download Alfresco Scanning tool (Capturesco) from here.
Thank you for your interest and your support.
Capturesco 2.0 Beta 1 Released
Nov 18th
Capturesco 2.0 Beta 1, just released. It has lots of changes and tweaks on the scanning module.
- The project now is built using Visual Studio 2008
- All codes are now written in C#
- Adding TWAIN supports for Scanners
- Scanning can be made through Capturesco or native scanner TWAIN driver
- New enhanaced interface showing the steps.
- Better supports for ADF
- Users can now choose to save the multi pages scanning on a single file or multiple files
- Lots of code cleaning
- New logo for the Capturesco
Don’t forget to register WIA if you are planning to capture images through camera
To download it go to Capturesco Page on Alfresco Forge, if you need any help leave a comment…
Any supports will be appreciated
Orbeon Forms Arabic support (Right to Left)
Oct 11th
Yes the above picture is true, Orbeon Forms supports Arabic and the most important is right to left page layout. This mean not only Arabic can benefit but also Persian and Hebrew languages. The process is very simple, you just want to play with the default CSS that shipped with the Orbeon Forms.
To to do that:
- Download and unzip this file to the webapps folder on TomCat or place it anywhere you want
- Download this file and place it on config folder for obreon (i.e. webapps\orbeon\WEB-INF\resources\config). (Change the path for the CSS if you change it on the above step, if not don’t do anything)
- Open the form builder and design your own form in Arabic, save it and then Publish it, now from the summary document you can open it with right to left alignment.
Notes:
- I did the right to left page layout for all Forms, but you can customize it, only for few forms
- You can’t have English and Arabic on same time, because the English will have the right to left page layout unless someone come with an idea how to load different CSS once the change language button is clicked
- While you are design your form take in consideration that the Form Builder is not on Right to Left layout, but you can do it if you prefer so
- If you have any questions, feel free to ask and i must mention the Web Developer Extension for Firefox gave me a great help
Orbeon Forms is is an open source forms solution that handles the complexity of forms typical of the enterprise or government. It is delivered to standard web browsers (including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera) thanks to XForms and Ajax technology, with no need for client-side software or plugins. Orbeon Forms allows you to build fully interactive forms with features that include as-you-type validation, optional and repeated sections, always up-to-date error summaries, PDF output, full internationalization, and controls like auto-completion, tabs, dialogs, trees and menus. Orbeon Forms already supports most of the XForms 1.1 specification.
Capturesco Version 1.0 final is released
Sep 1st
i released the latest iteration of Capturesco on the project page also I added small documentation for the tool, I hope soon I can start to work on the new version. If you like my work either hire me you can found my CV on About Me page or donate for me )) via paypal to rami223@gmail.com
Using ADF with WIA (VB.Net)
Aug 2nd
While I am working on Capturesco as a scanning/Capturing tool for Alfresco by using WIA, I faced a problem using ADF (Automatic Document Feeder) to scan images. I did some googling on the Internet until I found this article ADF using WIA, the article was for C#, I converted to VB.Net and did some modifications on the code to make it work.
The code will detect if there is a pages on the feeder if not, it will stop scanning, the code need some modifications to add multipages supports, for now all images will be saved as tiff on the C drive.
You can get the Scanning Code from Here
Capturesco – The Alfresco Capture Tool (Alfresco Scan)
Jul 26th
Capturesco is a tool built using VB.Net to add capture functionality to Alfresco by scanning documents, capture pictures from Web Cams or Camera and Videos. The tool is calling Alfresco Web services and allow the user to choose where to save the scanned or captured images. This tool was tested on Alfresco Lab 3.0 and was build by a help from this great article http://tinyurl.com/cgc984
To use this tool, you must have alfresco lab 3.o installed and configured, currently I am using localhost:8080 and you can change that but you have to rebuild the solution. Also you have to register the WIA.dll using regsvr32
I am using the WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) API to capture or scan documents and images.
Beta 1 from Capturesco was released on Thursday, the basic functionality are working (capture and choose where to save) but still lots of validations still be made.
To Do for Capturesco 1.0:
- Adding validations
- Choose the image format
- Adding video capture
- User Interface enhancement
To do later on after releasing version 1.0
- Allow adding custom meta data to the scanned or captured image
If you have any ideas or suggestions for features to be added, please feel free to tell me about it.
Custom Content Model Builder for Alfresco
Apr 29th
This utility will help you to build custom content model, it only build the custom content model xml file, and the admin must modify manually the rest two files you can specify if the field is required, default or multi-values list. If you need any help please leave for me a comment, Source Code and Documentation
Update:
New updated source code is released please check the tool page
