Print to Web

Print content resides as PDF, Quark or Microsoft Word files. Frequently, the content needs to be taken onto the web.

The best place to tap into this is the print CMS system where the content has some meta-data. Where you have the header and the body of the story together and you can associate them.

Logginge Wows and Voes

Those old enough will recogonize the two mehods ( PrintError and PrintDebug) which we would have in each application we would write, which in turn will have something like

If(debugEnabled) printf(message).

In production, we would only have error logs as the synchronous

Then we discovered loggers –

OR mapping – opinion and issues.

One of the biggest architecture decision which stares us on our face is whether to use OR mapping or not. The arguments in favour are very convincing, but does it apply in all scenario?

Web to Print

It looks very logical that WCMS should drive print, or atleast that it should be easy to use web content for print. After all, the content entry part of a WCMS is no less than a print workflow system allowing you to contribute content, provide meta-data etc. You could also possibly do basic formatting like highlighting some-portions of content bold or italic. You can possibly also have different versions of the story to fit different outputs (Like a Web Edition version and a Print Edition Version) – Well, yes, not all WCMS allow that but there are a few which do. You can associate pictures with stories. You can maintain categorization and association with other content. You have a workflow, everything seems to work – so what is the issue?

Layers and Tiers

Software architects are a confused lot. Communicating with each other is a challenge. There is always a discussion about what goes in what layer ( or tier) and logical vs Physical separation. Even the definition of Data Tier specially is open to interpretation.

Arnon is the first person I saw calling (potential) physical separation as Tier and (Definitely) logical separation as layer – and I believe its a good separation to have in our vocabulary.

Component or service?

Every few days, in one forum or the other, I see the question “How to choose between a component and a service” or “shall I make this module a component or a service” or some variation of it. Is there a simple answer?

Navigation, Ads, Site stats and custom messages for co-branded sites

In this post, I will explore how to handle Navigation, ads etc for co-branded sites. Next post will be a concluding post in this series on how content management (WCMS) delivery systems fare in this respect (After all, their job is content re-positioning).

Branding Application Continued..

In the previous post on this topic, I talked about simple ways of branding application or content pages. Sometimes, however a much higher level of customization is required.

This is usually handled in one of the two popular ways of doing this-  Having custom templates, and having a separate UI layer hosted either by customer or service provider.

Branding – application and content (Co-Branding , White Labelling)

In this port third in the series of Co-Branding, White Labelling, I will talk about common strategies we use to brand application and content pages.

The branding requirement typically consists of :

- presenting the customer’s Logo / banner, typically on the top

- using custom Stylesheets

- custom content at pre-defined locations ( like if it were a shared airline portal, it will say enter your Executive Club card number, or enter your Flying Dutchman number).

- Suffix/prefix Title

- Page width

Optimizing for low bandwidth OR my site is slow in eastern hemisphere

I thought this issue was long dead and buried. Then I saw this post in asp.net forums here - Calvin wondering how to improve the speed of his site in different parts of this world ( whether replication is the only option). Here is my reply, reproduced.