Easter Eggs

I saw an interesting feature about "easter eggs" on BBC's "Click".

Easter eggs are hidden bonuses or extras available on commercial products (Software, DVDs, etc.) and usually accessible using a "secret" key combination. Easter eggs are created by a member of the development team trying to escape from the monotony of his usual day to day tasks. It also adds a "fun" part to the product.

The trend is however heading towards a reduction of easter eggs because they add to the overall size of software, which is usually already quite big nowadays.

To see an example of an easter egg go to:
http://www.google.com/

Type "Google easter eggs" in the search field then click on "I'm Feeling Lucky".

You will then be able to play a fun game created by Ken Perlin :-)

Problem logging into Magento after installation

If you have just installed the Magento online-shopping cart system onto your "localhost" and are having trouble when you log into the backend-part:

Try replacing:
http://localhost/<path_to_magento>/index.php/admin/

with:
http://127.0.0.1/<path_to_magento>/index.php/admin/

The reason for this bug seems to be that Magento does not recognise "localhost" as being the equivalent to "127.0.0.1" (the localhost's IP Address) and only "127.0.0.1" seems to work. This seems to be a strange bug that I have never experienced in other applications.

Choosing between PDF Clown and iText

I was looking for a Java library to manipulate files using the PDF (Portable Document File) format. The two obvious possibilities seemed to be:

• PDF Clown http://www.stefanochizzolini.it/en/projects/clown/
• iText http://www.lowagie.com/iText/

BTW This isn't a detailed comparison but a general impression of the two products (a gut feeling)...Hmm decisions, decisions....

I downloaded both JARs and checked out the documentation. I soon realised that there was a big difference in the quantity of documentation available (iText has a lot more). Which makes sense since Bruno Lowagie (iText creator) has been working on the library since about 1999 while PDF Clown is relatively new.

I started out by installing the Jar files in Eclipse and trying out a simple example. Unfortunately I seemed to have a small problem with the PDF Clown example (SerializationModeEnum.Compact mentioned in the UserGuide didn't seem to exist) while the iText example worked fine.

I also then read the following note about PDF Clown: "This project is young, so that it's to be considered UNSTABLE. Feel free to experiment with it, but DO NOT use it in a production environment (so: beware!)" at: http://www.stefanochizzolini.it/en/projects/clown/downloads.html#License Needless to say it didn't really fill me with confidence for PDF Clown ;-)

On the other hand iText has been used successfully by numerous commercial and open source applications: Macromedia ColdFusion (now belongs to Adobe), Jasper-Reports, Eclipse/BIRT, Google Calendar, etc.

For these reasons I decided to go with iText.

The main inconvenient with iText is that it doesn't properly implement the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern, meaning that it doesn't give the possibility to properly separate content and presentation.

The fact that I chose iText does not mean that PDF Clown is without merit: I like the object-oriented approach Stefano Chizzolini has taken. I simply feel that the library needs a bit more time before truly becoming mature.

If following this article people are interested in using iText I would advise to get Bruno Lowagie's book "iText in Action": http://www.1t3xt.com/docs/book.php which is pretty much a definite guide.

Open Source Software to open PSD files

I am working for a webdesign company, creating Joomla templates. The problem we had is that they do all their web design in Photoshop and then export it as .psd (Photoshop Document) files. Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop and it didn't really seem worth it to buy Adobe's (expensive) product just to edit PSD files. So I tried looking for open source (or freeware) alternatives.

The best option I found was GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program):
http://www.gimp.org/

which is not only a nice .psd editor but also a good image manipulation program available under the GPL (GNU General Public Licence).

IT Curious Blog opening

Hi

My name is Martin McNulty. I live and work in Zurich (Switzerland). I am a Java Developer/PHP Freelancer and have decided to start this blog in order to address small problems I encounter (or small choices I make) when working on projects.
Hopefully this blog will be useful to other people having the same problems or facing the same decisions.