Friday, 4 April 2008

ഒരടി മുന്നോട്ട്, രണ്ടടി പിന്നോട്ട്

അടുത്ത കാലം വരെ മലയാളമനോരമയുടെ ഇന്റര്‍നെറ്റ് പതിപ്പിനു ഫയര്‍ഫോക്സിനോട് വല്ലാത്ത ഒരു അടുപ്പമില്ലായ്മ ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ഫോട്ടോ ഗാലറിയില്‍ ആകെ കാണാന്‍ പറ്റുന്നത് ആദ്യത്തെ ചിത്രം മാത്രം. അതിനു ശേഷം എത്ര ക്ളിക്കിയാലും മുന്നോട്ട് പോകില്ലായിരുന്നു. ഈ യൂണിക്കോഡ് യുഗത്തിലും ഡൈനാമിക് ഫോണ്ടുകള്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതു കൊണ്ട് പദ്മ ഫയര്‍ഫോക്സ് എക്സ്റ്റന്‍ഷന്‍ ഉപയോഗിച്ചാണ് മനോരമ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറില്‍ വായിക്കുന്നത്. അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ മനോരമയുടെ ഫോണ്ട് ഡൌണ്‍ലോഡ് ചെയ്തു ഇന്‍സ്റ്റാള്‍ ചെയ്യണം. എന്നാലും ഗ്നു/ലിനക്സ് + ഫയര്‍ഫോക്സില്‍ ചില വാക്കുകള്‍ വായിക്കാന്‍ ജോല്‍സ്യനെ കാണണം. പരസ്യങ്ങള്‍ കൊണ്ട് കുത്തി നിറച്ച സൈറ്റ് കണ്ണിനു അരോചകമായി തുടങ്ങിയപ്പോള്‍ അവിടത്തെ വായന മതിയാക്കി മാതൃഭൂമി RSS ഫീഡ്സ് ബ്രൌസറില്‍ ചേര്‍ത്തു. മനോരമ ഓണ്‍ലൈനിന്റെ കെട്ടും മട്ടും ആകെ മാറിയെന്ന് ഒരു സുഹൃത്ത് പറഞ്ഞ് അറിഞ്ഞാണ് ഏറെ കാലത്തിനു ശേഷം വീണ്ടും ആ സൈറ്റ് സന്ദര്‍ശിച്ചത്..

പുതിയ ലോഗോയും, നിറങ്ങളും , ലേ-ഔട്ടും ഒരു പുതിയ അനുഭവമായി. AJAX സാങ്കേതിക വിദ്യ വളരെ ഫലപ്രദമായി ഉപയോഗിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. എന്നാല്‍ ഉള്‍പേജുകള്‍ക്ക് കാര്യമായ മാറ്റമൊന്നും സംഭവിച്ചിട്ടില്ല. പരസ്യങ്ങളുടെ അതിപ്രസരം കാരണം പേജ് സ്ക്രോളിങ്ങ് വളരെ ദുഷ്കരമായി. എന്നെ ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ നിരാശപ്പെടുത്തിയത് പുതിയ സൈറ്റിനു പദ്മയോടുള്ള പിണക്കമാണ്. AJAX ഉപയോഗിച്ചതു കാരണം പല വിഭാഗങ്ങളിലും യൂണിക്കോട് പരിഭാഷ പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്നില്ല. നമ്മളെക്കെണ്ട് മനോരമഫോണ്ട് ഇന്‍സ്റ്റാള്‍ ചെയ്യിച്ചേ അടങ്ങൂ എന്ന വാശിയുള്ളതു പോലെ തോന്നുന്നു. അല്ലെങ്കില്‍ സാങ്കേതിക വിദ്യ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതില്‍ മുന്‍പന്തിയിലാണെന്ന് അവകാശപ്പെടുന്ന മനോരമ ഇപ്പോഴും ഡൈനാമിക് ഫോണ്ടില്‍ തന്നെ നില്‍ക്കുന്നതെന്തിനാണ് ?

ഐ. എസ്. ഒ അംഗീകരിച്ച യൂണിക്കോടും സ്വതന്ത്ര ഫോണ്ടുകളും ഉള്ളപ്പോള്‍ മലയാളം പത്രങ്ങള്‍ ഇപ്പോഴും മാനനീകരിക്കാത്ത ഡൈനാമിക് ഫോണ്ടുകള്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതെന്തിനാണെന്ന് മനസ്സിലാവുന്നില്ല. മാതൃഭൂമി പത്രം, മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ, പിന്നെ സ്വത ന്ത്ര മലയാളം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടിങ് വെബ്സൈറ്റും മാത്രമാണ് എന്റെ അറിവില്‍ ഇന്‍ര്‍നെറ്റില്‍ മലയാളം യൂണിക്കോഡ് ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നത്.

Friday, 21 March 2008

CATS Open Source version discontinued

The companies which I work for, uses Source version of CATS Applicant Tracking System(CATS) for managing the internal recruiting and applicant tracking. Today, I was looking at their website for new software updates and noticed that the Open Source version of CATS is no longer available for download. I checked their news/blog site and found that there is no reference about the discontinuation. As a developer I was disappointed with the company's deal with the Open Source version. There was a vibrant community around CATS which helped in testing and debugging the software and I was also part of them on behalf of my employer. It's really shocking to see that all the reference to user/developer forums, bug tracker systems and the download area are removed from the website and no one can access the knowledge base which was built with the help of developers from all over the world.

The CATS project was claimed to be industry's first Open Source Enterprise Applicant Tracking System. The "About Us" page which appeared during 2007 August in CATS website says:

Industry's First Open Source Applicant Tracking System

Welcome to CATS, the industry's first Applicant Tracking System (ATS), written by recruiters, for recruiters! CATS has a clean user-interface, is easy to use, and has all the bells and whistles of expensive proprietary commercial ATS packages. See for yourself and learn why CATS is being implemented by thousands of Human Resource (HR) professionals, recruiters, staffing and placement agencies around the world.
Quoted with the help of http://archive.org

CATS is being developed by Cognizo Technologies with the help of an active community moderated by the same company itself. Until version 0.9.1 CATS was available for free download under the terms of CATS Public License Version 1.1a (a modified version of Mozilla Public License Version 1.1). CATS released the first version of the Applicant Tracking System about 2 years back and acclaimed good feedback due to the intuitive interface and simple application process. CATS can be installed on a server which supports PHP and MySQL and can be used on any standard web browser.

Initially the project was developer-friendly and offered Subversion repository access to the community developers. But even after 2 years, the company didn't provided the Subversion access. After discontinuation, the company removed all the hyper links to the forums and bug tracker systems from the website. However I was able to access the bugs through these direct URLs FS#113 and FS#108 (I don' think that these URL will be there for a long period).

From the user perspective, there won't be any impact on the company's move, because they still offer the free hosted version of the software. There are also additional features which can be utilized if the users subscribe to the paid plans. I don't see any issues in providing such a service. But denying access to developers who contributed to the project is not graceful from the perspective of a Free Software enthusiast. May be the project haven't accepted any code from the developers outside the company. But I'm sure that there are people, like me, who helped in testing, reporting bugs and feature request.

Cognizo used the buzzword Open Source to publicize their product and once they got a stable project, they simply locked the "Open" Source project. Who knows whether Open Source projects like OrangeHRM KnowledgeTree , or VtigerCRM may follow the same path and close the source code. However I hope that it won't happen and soon there will be a better replacement for CATS.

P.S: The opinions expressed in this article are not of my employers and doesn't have any relation with Ascella Technologies and Ejyothi Services (I work for them).


Friday, 4 January 2008

My checklist for Fedora desktop

I have been using GNU/Linux since 2001, and experimented various versions of RedHat Linux and Fedora and currently using Fedora 8. Whenever I upgrade( or sometimes do a fresh install) it's very difficult to setup the commonly used applications, so I have compiled a list of applications in a text file in my desktop. I thought that this would be helpful for others also, so I added some brief notes.

1. Xine - Multimedia player:
xine has been my favourite multimedia player for several years. Unfortunately due to legal issues xine is not included in the Fedora repository but it is available in the Freshrpms fedora repository. The Freshrpms also contains several other add-ons for Fedora. It's quite easy to setup the yum to access Freshrpms repository, just run the following command from a terminal:

rpm -ivh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/8/freshrpms-release/freshrpms-release-1.1-1.fc.noarch.rpm

Once the repo is enabled the following command can be used to install xine.
# yum install xine

2. xmms-mp3 - MP3 plugin for xmms:
XMMS is one of the simplest audio player available for GNU/Linux. The XMMS package should be installed prior to xmms-mp3. This apckage is available in freshrpms repo. I used the following command to install xmms and it's plugin.
# yum install xmms xmms-mp3

3. dvdrip - DVD ripping utility
This package is also available in freshrpms. The following command will install dvdrip.

# yum install dvdrip

4. gstreamer-plugins-ugly - Proprietary codecs for gstreamer
Totem and other native gnome media players doesn't play the media files enoded in proprieatary formats. gstreamer-plugins-ugly will help you to overcome this limitation.

# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly

5. rar and unrar - compression utility
Occassionaly some of my friends sent files compressed using the M$ Windows compression utility. Freshrpms has the rar package which can be used to compress and decompress files in rar format.

# yum install rar unrar

6. libquicktime - Library for reading and writing QuickTime files
The libquicktime package is necessary for reading quicktime files(*.mov) in GNU/Linux. This package is also provided by Freshrpms.

# yum install libquicktime

7. Flash Player:
Even though I'm not a big fan of flash movies, occasionally I have to visit websites that supports flash movies. The adobe website provides a yum repository of the flash plugins so that you can view flash movies in your web browser.

Install the adobe-release package using the following command:
rpm -ivh http://linuxdownload.adobe.com/adobe-release/adobe-release-i386-1.0-1.noarch.rpm

Now you can install flashplayer using the following command:
# yum install flash-plugin

8. Java:
Java can be downloaded from java official website. I prefer to install sun java in /opt since Fedora already has a java version (icedtea).

9. Malayalam support:
Using Malayalam in my computer was my dream and it seems that it's almost perfect now. Most of theissues are resolved but I have to do some kind of tweaking to read and write Malayalam in Fedora. I have to install the latest updates of pango and libicu packages from the smc repository. (The packages in this repository will soon be available in the official fedora repository also). Pango is the rendering engine for GNOME and libicu is the rendering engine for OpenOffice.org
Download the smc repo file from here and copy it to /etc/yum.repos.d/.
After setting up the repository update the pango and libicu packages using the following command:

# yum update libicu pango

The lohit-malayalam fonts distributed with Fedora is buggy and you have to install the Mal0tf or Rachana_g02(traditional) fonts to render malayalam properly. You can download these fonts from here . The installation instructions can be found in my previous post.

10. Firefox Padma
There has been issues in reading Malayalam websites (www.manoramaonline.com, www.deepika.com etc ..) which uses the dynamic fonts. The Firefox community has come up with an add-on called Padma, which can be used to convert the dynamic fonts to unicode fonts so that they can be read correctly. To install Padma in your firefox, open the url https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/873 in Firefox and click the "Install Now" button.

11. K3B
Even though my favourite desktop environment is GNOME, my all time favourite in KDE is K3B, which is the superior CD/DVD burning software in GNU/Linux. K3B is available in the official Fedora repository and it can be installed using yum.

These are just the preliminary list. I will keep on adding to this whenever I get time.