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I have been playing with Graphite as application monitoring system but I'm wondering if there's something better out there for what I want.
Here are a few requirements I have in mind:
Dashboards (easy to create/change)
the items on the dashboard should be mostly charts but also colored "number boxes" (a la http://shopify.github.io/dashing/)
when a metrics goes below/beyond a certain value show some warnings on the screen (different frame/background) and potentially send an email
setting up a rule-to-warn (see above) should be simple to do and have many ways to specify a threshold (absolute value, +/- the min/max/avg over the past 30 days, percentile, etc...)
Clicking on one of the charts/boxes would redirect to a larger/more detailed chart or a "sub-dashboard"
I would prefer open-source but I'm open to commercial products especially cloud-based solutions.
Any suggestions?
Many thanks in advance.
I personally use the following combination:
Dashboard: Grafana. It is really good looking and makes easy to create and edit dashboards. Unfortunately it doesn't have colored "number boxes" but you can also look into using a wider-purpose one like Geckoboard or Ducksboard for this end.
Alerting system: Seyren. Lets you specify alerts when any metric trespasses a certain threshold and alerts via mail and dozen of other ways, readily integrated. However it doesn't ease in any way dealing with historical values, percentiles, etc. You have to do this manually via Graphite functions. Another popular option: Cabot. I use Seyren instead because it looks more active and is lighter to deploy.
Unfortunately there is not final "answer" to your question, only suggestions. You might find more appropriate forums for your question than Stackoverflow, like mailing lists or Reddit.
Hope it helps anyhow! :)
Your question states prefer open source, but if you’re really open to commercial option, I think the ZingChart JavaScript charting library meets your requirements.
1. Dashboards (easy to create/change): ZingChart uses a CSS-like syntax that is pretty easy to use and edit.
2. Dashboard items should be charts and number boxes: The library allows you to create widgets to display items like you've described. Here is a demo with number boxes -- http://www.zingchart.com/playground/presentation/51b21c1a3c8ae
3 . Warnings on screen: As you can see the in the demo above, rules have been set for the number boxes to display in green for increases and red for decreases. Similar rules can be set for a range of values. (Which addresses number 4).
You could even use multiple rules sets for a values that are close to reaching the threshold. http://zingchart.com/playground/run/5460f51991002 This example shows rules set to place a red marker on data points below the value of 200.
4 . Rule-to-warn: There are a variety of ways to use rules to replicate your desired warning. You can also combine rules with our API and create warnings as well as fire an event which can be used to trigger an email.
Its not mentioned in your question but if real time data is a consideration, ZingChart also provides the ability to transfer data via http or websocket protocols. I’m on the team at ZingChart so if you have any questions about the demo or the features described, please feel free to reach out.
If you have the right budget the best tool is splunk. It is not cloud based but it is the best when it comes to analyzing data and creating graphs and dashboards out of generated data by scripts and log files.
Splunk comes with a very flexible query language and the ability to create scheduled searches that can be used as a very robust monitoring solution. I still did not find any better product but the downside is the high price.
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I have been working for a while now but because of my earlier habits i never worked systematically.
I have never created a workflow chart for my software as how the software will work and instead of that i started working directly which in turn leads to many problems later.
Below is a small situation i currently need help with:-
NOTE:I have already created a software which does the following and i don't need any code for it, i just want to know how a workflow chart is created for such a situation.
1) Party List : This is where i would like to store all of the information of my customer.
2) Sales : Here i will sell my products to the customer.
There are 2 cases here, whenever the customer arrives we have an option to
either save it in the party list and select it from the list in the sales form
or type it manually and then save it
Now comes the checking part:-
If an entry was saved in Sales when the checkbox was ticked and the user selected a party, lets say "Akhmed" has been saved AND the user tries to delete the record of "Akhmed" from the Party List form then the software shouldn't allow it to do so as the entry of "Akhmed" already exist in Sales.
Can anyone show me how a workflow chart is created for such a situation?
EDIT
Here is a sample workflow i have made after reading some articles, please point out any improvements that can be made to it or is it completely wrong or anything.
First of all, great question. I wish all software engineers thought first before jumping to writing a code. Especially when it's about anything more serious than a couple of lines for fun.
I think your software flow can be expressed as Activity diagram. An example of activity diagram is expressed on this picture: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/uml/images/uml_activity_diagram.jpg
Basically, activity diagram is a combination of steps and transitions (arrows) connecting them. Step can be just something that happens in the flow, or it can be a logical operator (decision) which branches the flow execution into different directions.
If you need to also emphasize who needs to execute the step, besides just showing what the steps are, you can add swimlanes (horizontal or vertical columns showing the actor names) to the activity diagram. That's where it turns into a Flow Chart diagram. e.g. on this image you can see horizontal swimplanes explaining who does the step execution http://static1.creately.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Support-Process-Flowchart-Template-1024x613.png
Note that terminology can differ from person to person, but these are the names for these 2 kinds of diagrams I have mostly heard and used myself.
There are other kinds of diagrams too, but I think your specific case will be covered with the ones mentioned above. Although... use case diagram can be something you may be interested in, but that does not depict steps. That only will mention actors and what kind of actions they can do with your system. e.g. https://sourcemaking.com/files/sm/images/uml/img_32.jpg
You didn't ask for tools, but I usually prefer to use tools that are rigor (rather than loose like Visio), so I would recommend to use WhiteStarUML. It's free and does a great job. But as I said, it's strictly UML-based, so will require some familiarity with UML.
Finally, about your attached picture:
What you showed looks like an activity diagram with some illegal components on it (illegal from UML specification standpoint). Is it good or bad? - depends. If it's supposed to be a rigor UML diagram then it's bad. If it's just a sketch of an idea - not bad.
Your diagram mentions database sign (called "DB") and arrows connecting to it. That's illegal on an activity diagram UML. Instead, you can have a step which says "Data gets saved to Database", and remove the "DB". Also, you have a single step which says both "Party" and "Sales" on it - that's not a legal UML. I think you tried to express that there are 2 flows. In that case, just have 2 different activity diagrams instead of one.
Your question is quite broad but I'll give it a shot.
I think you want to reconsider your approach. I would suggest reading up on UML sequence diagrams. They are a kind of diagram that provides a way to represent how requests are made within code. UML, in general, can also be used to make class diagrams and other useful flow-like charts for representing code. Many tools, such as visual-paradigm, allow you to build UML diagrams (ex. class diagrams)that can be converted directly into code. This can be useful when getting you started on the program. There is a learning curve with using these tools as different kinds of arrows mean different things, but they can be very powerful. they can also be used to take existing code and convert it to a diagram, which is great when trying to explain how your program works.
here are some other links that might be useful:
lucidchart has an example of a pop-up window diagram like the one you described.
draw.io just allows for you to make the diagrams, not convert them to code, but it is an easy to use tool and integrates with google drive and git hub.
stackoverflow has some info on UML too.
If you are looking for a "professional workflow diagram" UML if a fine way to go, there are many ways they can be laid out and they can be quite professional, I learned about them in school and have used them at work to help plan out the flow of data through our system. There are many more UML tools out there, it might be worth looking into a tutorial to find what's best for you.
You seem to be on the right track, I have never added a database to my flow-charts but it is up to you on how detailed you want to get. You seem to be using the correct symbols!
Here is an awesome, free website that I use. https://www.draw.io/ it was created for making flow charts and other things.
I personally would remove the UI at the beginning of your chart. Try to stay away from the overly technical examples when starting out with flow-charts, hit up YouTube or Google images for some simple, but correct examples.
Good luck friend!
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I am planning an app that will need the ability to look up the elevation of geographic points by lat/lng. Ideally I would like something that would work worldwide, but US-only would also suffice. I have looked at using the USGS Elevation Query Web Service, however it only allows you to query for one point at a time, and I will need to look up several hundred, and possibly up to several thousand. I also considered downloading & hosting the National Elevation Dataset myself, but it's almost 100 gigs, and apparently the USGS only allows you to download 1.5 gigs at a time.
Can anyone familiar with GIS recommend a good solution for me? I'm looking for something as lightweight & simple as possible. I am completely new to GIS, so I would really appreciate suggestions on where to get the data, how to store it, and how/what to use when working with it.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Just to clarify, the data points I need are not predetermined. They are arbitrary points chosen by the user (by interacting with a google maps mashup), so I do need to be able to query for any point, not just a small subset.
EDIT 2: If there is no lightweight or simple solution, I'll take whatever I can get =)
I'll give you one of the best "secrets" that I learned throughout the years after going through many different pains (leeching scripts, manual clicking, etc). It is an old-school trick... contact a real person there!
The best way do get the NED elevation dataset is to contact USGS's Eros group directly at bulkdatainfo_at_usgs.gov
You send them an external drive and after 4 to 8 weeks (usually much less than that) they will send you the entire dataset that you requested.
Then use GDAL to query your points in a way similar to this example. You may want to read the Affine Geotransform section of the GDAL Data Model
I recently stumbled in to this question while doing research. I don't have a complete simple answer either, but there are some other options not listed in the answers so far:
Google Elevation API: 25,000 requests/day, limited to Google Maps applications
Lat/Lon to Elevation: 2 points / second
GPSVisualizer: no published speed, but not intended for general DEM use
Shuttle Radar Topography: alternative to the NED, 7 gigabytes for the US.
The USGS Elevation Query Web Service only allows one query at a time, but it allows you to make requests with SOAP, HTTP GET, or HTTP POST. Choose your favorite language and write a script to generate requests for each of your data points.
I bought a GEOIP database and store every single post long lat data in mysql. After that i just implement the Google Map API by passing dynamic longlat data to the Google MAP. What I get is all my post shown in the Google Map and also display nearest post from a certain location
What you need is a GEOIP database, A query that calculate distance in miles base on given longlat, Google API, PHP Dynamic passing API variables.
example of my site : Matchimedia.com.
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We are developing a desktop application.We are writing tutorials for users in a wiki.I was looking for some guidance ..good practices when writing such tutorials.
regards
I think some basic rules are ok
include as many screenshots as you can
don't use too much technical wording
structure your pages/documents that it is easy to navigate inside
don't make the user looks stupid, i.e. way of writing that would say the user is not capable of doing anything
Also it could be a good idea if you make your wiki and ask one typical user to review it with you. Getting the opinion of the user would probably show you million of things you have forgotten.
Have a FAQ
Tips and Tricks Section.
Have short videos about "How to..."
A few tips for technical documents:
1- Assume everyone reading the document is the dumbest person you've ever met who has never seen a computer in their entire life.
2- Don't skip a single step. Even if it's clicking a well-known button, etc. If your instruction doesn't start with "click" or "type", it's not granular enough.
3- There are never too many screenshots... unless you can't read the text between them, or fail to notice it entirely. Leave enough spaces between screenshots and text, and make the text one size larger if need be.
4- Do it yourself, multiple times. Make others follow your directions. Make your grandmother follow them. If she can, your manager probably can. Maybe.
Figure out the key features that users will use most often and provide a cheat sheat. Download any one refcards from dzone.com as an example.
I think the best tutorials are those that guide the students in an incremental, step-wise manner. Clearly describe prerequisites at the top and tell the readers 1, 2, 3 this is what you have to do.
Choose your tasks thoughtfully (and stick to them). Each tutorial should cover a single task and stay focused on the goal throughout, with only the briefest digressions to introduce new terms or concepts. Start with the very first step a user needs to take to do something useful with the software. With a well designed app, a sequence of introductory tutorials is likely to start with a very short, simple one ("Creating a New Project") and proceed through intermediate ("Importing INTERCAL-72 Files") to advanced topics ("Customizing the Compiler Toolchain") so that the tutorials become more involved as the user becomes more involved with the app.
Use numbered lists. Describe specific procedures that can be followed by anyone who can read.
Use consistent styles for program and interaction elements, like bold text for buttons and menu items and monospace fonts for user input. The specific styles you choose matter less than their consistent application. If we're talking Windows apps, the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications might come in handy.
Verify your procedures relentlessly. If a user needs a tutorial to figure out how to use the application, she's probably already frustrated. If she follows it to the letter and it doesn't work, everyone's a lot worse off, including you and your support rep.
Use screenshots as signposts. Include one screenshot of each window and dialog box referenced by the procedure. Don't label them or otherwise doll them up. They're there to provide visual reinforcement that the user is following the procedure correctly and getting to the right places.
Respect different learning styles. Keep in mind that most people are visual and/or auditory learners, so text isn't the best way to reach them. In practice, that means screenshot videos with voiceover. The written tutorial is the script.
make sure your app is intuitive first. then when your sure it is, make it more intuitive.
see :
http://www.discoapp.com/
http://www.utorrent.com/
http://handbrake.fr/
http://www.nethack.org/
dont see:
http://www.adobe.com/
Windows songsmith
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We have to convert EVERYTHING to images for archiving purpose. DOC, HTML, email, ZIP, PDF, TXT and any document you can read/view on computer. In addition, it must recursive convent on all embed attachment and files in zip.
I know ImgMaker only. Is it the best or I can have something better?
My boss ask me to search that are there any alternative other then ImgMaker.
Any open source or profit suggestion are welcome.
There is a whole industry built around this type of function and numerous service providers that charge a fee per document to do this type of conversion. You are better off buying than building it on your own.
The idea of converting Everything is fundamentally a fool's errand as you would need a single program that could render every file type ever created (in essence recreating every piece of software that ever wrote a data file AND recreating every version of each). Also, not every file format has a format that has a direct rendered form. For example, what do you do with a database file, a DLL,an XML file, a WAV file?
If you are looking for something that does a reasonable job for a large number of formats, there are two main players with OEM toolkits, but both are extremely expensive and neither supports the Java platform directly. I use the former if you have any additional questions.
Stellent (now Oracle) OutsideIn: http://www.oracle.com/technologies/embedded/outside-in.html
Autonomy KeyView: http://www.autonomy.com/content/Products/idol-modules-keyview-viewing/index.en.html
Another possible option is an image print driver like Black Ice, but it has several issues including the need for a copy of every software application on the machine the code is running on, and an operator to dismiss all the inevitable dialogs that will come up when you open the files in the native application. Also, for things like Excel spreadsheets, you usually need some manual tweaking of the spreadsheet to make the printout look right (else you get 900 pages added to your tiff with that one extra column that wouldn't fit)
I don't know if this will help, because it sounds like you want something totally automated, but there are many pseudo-printer drivers that can create TIFF images as output. For example:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Uh? How do you expect to convert a zip archive to an image? What should the pixels show? Should it be lossless, so you can convert back? If it's for archiving, I would guess that is a requirement, but it sounds weird.
What's going to happen to the tiff images afterwards? Assuming you want to manage them in some way, it seems to me you'd be better off looking for some complete documentation management product that can take these doc types as input and manage/archive the (presumably) large number of images that you'll have.
Otherwise you would seem to be re-inventing the wheel.
If you want open-source, something like Alfresco
Note the server based transformation feature below
Alfresco offers one integrated
repository to manage all formats of
content across image management,
document management, web content
management and email repositories. The
repository is a modern platform with:
One Repository for any Digital Asset
The industry’s most scalable, standards-based, JSR-170 content repository
Standards support for JSR-170, Web Services and REST
High-Availability, Fault Tolerance and Scalability – Auto failover and clustering
Secure Distributed Capture over Web Services, HTTP and HTTPS
Reuse of Alfresco Business Policy Rules
Server-based transformation between many formats including TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, MS-Office, PDF and FLASH
Metadata Extraction and Management
Automatic Classification Framework
find to do the recursion in combination with convert from imagemagick tookit would get you pretty far. I guess to support all what you want, you'll need to write a script that calls the right program.
The question as asked cannot be answered sensibly. One obvious solution is to simply rename each file by attaching .tiff. E.g. you could get ringtone.mp3.tiff. Insane as it is, there are not many better ways to convert an .mp3 to a .tiff.
Note that this is not an IT problem. The business is assuming everything is an image, and music is the trivial example of something that isn't.
( To clarify - this was assuming an automated setting, e.g. to archive incoming email for legal reasons. If that's required, you MUST archive incoming MP3's too. If you've got humans in the loop, this question would not belong on a programming forum. )
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I'm having trouble with project management & am looking for a good tool that will be a good match for the way my brain works (very associatively). I'd like a bug-tracker but one that I can group tasks into topics and associate the topics to each other in a graph (see the Wikipedia entry on Topic Maps ) so that I can find & visualize easily the "big picture". I've tried using AbstractSpoon's ToDoList and it works well but it's hierarchical and after about 30 or 40 entries I get lost in a maze of things to do.
any suggestions?
edit: I've now tried Freemind, Conzilla, XMind, and VUE. Freemind and Conzilla were a little flaky. XMind seems to be the most polished of the four; they have a "pro" version which is non-free (pay by the month >:( which is weird) but an open-source base version which is free. You can't export the data directly from the program with the free version, but the storage format is just a .jar-style (ZIP file w/ extension .xmind) file that contains a "contents.xml" that is easily parsed if I needed to.
#codeslave:
but how important is the visual
representation any way
Visualization is everything! I've got information overload and I need to be able to navigate a mess of information. I don't want it to be super-Powerpoint-polished, but I need to be able to use the associations that I create to remind myself how to find what I'm looking for. In an ideal world you could just full-text search everything, but that only works if you can remember the search phrase. Often I'll file something under "algorithm" and when I go to look for it I look under "programming" instead, or vice-versa. Associativity solves that problem by allowing me to visually browse my "mental model" of the information I've stored.
You can always get an CVS export from your "favourite" tool and create Topic Maps maps you can view with the Omnigator or the xSiteable tool. I used to have a few XSLT files to do such a job dealing with JIRA data. If the interest is high enough, maybe a ressurection is needed?
I've developed a small utility that will import MindMaps into Project plans. Let me know if something like this is helpful and I will develop it further.
Right now I just use it one-way from MindMap -> Project file. I generally use this for brainstorming and scope management, then export to Project when we like the scope of what we are working with for more formal project management.
What about using good old FogBugz? You can associate cases together pretty easily. You don't get the pretty graph of the topic space/mind map (feature idea Joel) but how important is the visual representation any way.