The Smell of HTML

There once was a sergeant named Worts,
Whose interest was mainly in forts;
He thought data was boring, and was fond of imploring,
"Buy some software to make your reports!"

There once was a man in Berlin,
Who always smelled faintly of gin,
When the bureaucrats asked, had he worked in the past,
He said, "Once I did; never agin!"

There once was some big revenue,
Which wasn't reported to you,
Then some time last year, the IRS bent your ear,
Now you've got a prison tattoo!

There once was a boss in LA,
Whose staff knew the right things to say;
When he asked for the data, he was told, "Come back lata,
The formatting could take us all day!"

There once was a fellow named Pat,
Whose revenue curves were all flat,
When told business was slack, the poor man fired back,
"I've got lots of reports showing that!"

One fellow thought HTML
Had kind of an inviting smell;
His friends all said, "Dwight -- it may be that you're right,
But how in the world can you tell?"

There once was a fellow who knowed
All the ways one can program in code;
And if you queried this guy, the best software to buy
For reports, he'd say, "Try this one, yo!"

THE FAIRY TALE

          Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a medium-sized box.  The box had four walls and the walls were covered with a rough grey fabric.  The box wasn't perfectly square, and it wasn't perfectly symmetrical.  One wall was eight feet long, two were six feet long, and the wall opposite from the long one was only five feet long.  The box wasn't really closed because the short wall left a space about three feet wide, and so the man could leave his box any time he wanted, through that space, but most of the time he felt like he wasn't allowed.  If the man stood up, he could see over the top of his box to other boxes where other box-people lived.  Some days the man liked his box a lot.  Other days he didn't.

          On the days the man didn't like the box, he would sit and wish he could be someplace else.  But even when he'd sit and wish with all of his strength, wishing never took him out of the box.  Wishing real hard like that only made the time go more slowly, and then the man really felt like he just didn't like the box very much.

          Then one day a knight in shining armor came by the man's box.  Only, since this story takes place in modern times, it wasn't really a knight and he didn't really have shining armor and, in fact, he didn't come at all, it was his handiwork that appeared on the box-man's computer screen one day (while the man was trying very hard not to do anything productive).  The shining knight who didn't actually come was a programmer, just like the box-man, and he promised to set the box-man free -- at least for a couple hours each afternoon.  

          All the box-man had to do was click a link on his computer, and then he could walk out of the box just about any time he wanted, and nobody would care, because everything that used to be so frustrating and aggravating and slow would be taken care of by the computer.
  

          The box-man didn't like this idea at first, because he knew that computers weren't supposed to improve life but to complicate it, but in the end he gave in and clicked the link.

          This is the link he clicked.

SIMPLE BUT NOT STUPID

          What in the name of all that is sacred is auto-tuning???  Have we progressed to the state as a society where our singers don't even need to sing?  Where tune and tone can soar and plunge at the dragging of a mouse, as a gutter-voiced lovely-faced starlet drones her way into computer-assisted virtuosity?

          Songs used to be fun.  And they used to be sung.  If you hearken back to a time when things actually worked properly without all kinds of manipulation and intervention, simplify your work and simplify your life -- and go back to some of the great old tunes of American music, like the few favorites we've put together here:

• "Happy Music," by Peggy Lee with the Dave Barber Band (first song of collection, also available for download).  "I want to hear some music with a happy beat, just a simple tune so I can tap my feet . . . ." 
• From the brilliant Louis Prima, long-time Vegas entertainer and the voice behind the timeless "I Wanna Be Like You" in Disney's the Jungle Book, we bring you "Tutti Tutti Pizzicato" (7:55 into the collection, also available for download)."
• "Do-do-do-do-do-do it again," by the Four Tunes with the Sid Bass Orchestra (first song of this collection, also available for download), a real toe-tapping, shoulder-wiggling number.
• "Heap Big Smoke, But No Fire," Arthur Godfrey with the Too Fat Trio (at minute 11 of collection, also available for download).  This hilarious send-up of folks who talk the talk and never walk the walk will bring you back to the days of schoolyard banter.  "Him talk a lot, him not so hot -- him big schmo . . . ."
• Slowing things down a ways, "Dem Dry Bones" from the Delta Rythym Boys will take you way back to a different and maybe more spiritual America (download here).
• Getting closer to modern styles, we have the rhythm and blues stylings of Kansas Joe McCoy in the stirring, mournful classic, "When the Levee Breaks" (download here).
• And, finally, my personal favorite, the unforgivably silly "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," popularized by Wendell Hall and here interpreted by Billy Murray and the International Novelty Orchestra (download).

          Buy yourself the free time to explore classic tunes from the good old days of Americana -- or buy time to screw around in the office -- with this-here cutting edge effort-saving workload-reducing efficientifizing software.

Paying a Fair Price for Your XML Reports

          One of Ben Franklin's favorite stories came from the time when he was a little boy of only seven years old. At this time, some of his uncles and older cousins, just returned from a successful trading voyage, filled his pockets with small coins. The young Ben Franklin set out on the road to seek some adventure with his newfound wealth; soon he saw another boy making music with a wonderful whistle, one of those hand-carved ones with a sliding rod inside a tube -- a slide whistle. Having never seen anything so fabulous before, Franklin rushed to the nearest dry-goods store, lay all of his coins on the counter, and breathlessly begged the proprietor to sell him a whistle before they were all gone. The shop keeper simply smiled, collected the coins, then reached down behind the counter and handed a whistle to the young boy.

          Overjoyed with his purchase, Franklin enjoyed a happy afternoon tootling around the town, up hill and down dale and everywhere his little legs could carry him. At last it began to grow dark, however, and the young Franklin had to return home, whistling all the way. When he reached his family's home, he shared with his brothers and sisters and cousins the story of his great luck in being able to buy such a fine whistle. The older among them laughed at the poor boy and, wiping away tears of mirth, explained that he had paid many times the actual value of the plaything. Young Franklin's cheeks burned with embarassment and anger at his foolhardiness, and he vowed never again to give too much for his whistle.

          The lesson learned by the seven-year-old Franklin served him well later in life, as he watched others waste their time and abandon their dignity pursuing goals that did not deserve such sacrifices. Ah, Franklin would say to himself, this one gives too much for his whistle.

          In business today, it is easy to pay far too much for our whistles. We waste hundreds of hours of time and sacrifice our calm and good humor chasing after perfect reports and perfect presentations. We dig deeply into our in-house software or popular commercial software trying to get our data from one format to another, one platform to another, trying to produce something informative and visually interesting from vast piles of dry data. As there exist affordable, convenient, and effective programs to take all of the slow and frustrating work out of producing such reports, we simply give too much for our whistles.

          In creating XML reports, we want software that is intuitive. We want something with a wizard interface, that can guide us competently through the steps in creating an XML report. We want to be able to design our own templates and report formats in our everyday business software programs, then pull the data from our documents into new XML reports or documents in a wide variety of formats. Any of our employees should be able to create an XML report with a minimum of hassle, and a minimum of wasted time. And the software for creating XML reports should work with various platforms, interfaces, and languages, including .NET, Java, C#, C++, Visual Basic, Python, and PHP. And, since we are all buying our whistles together inside of our company, we want to be able to coordinate workflow and scheduling when we produce XML reports.

          Some time ago, three Greek-American academics put together an in-depth explanation of what end users want to do in querying their XML data, by way of reporting on a Web-based generator of XML reports (available at www.cse.buffalo.edu/~mpetropo/pubs/cn.pdf). While the software they explore is interesting, it is not nearly so user-friendly and efficient as more modern XML reports software, nor can it interface with the usual office suite of software products. Thus the article is terribly informative about whistles, but the exact whistle it describes is rather expensive. The nuts and bolts behind a much cheaper and more useful whistle can be found in blog entries like http://www.xml-reports.com/2011/03/xpath-introduction.html.

          We all need useful, informative, visually impressive reports in our everyday business operations. And we would all like to give just the right price, in terms of time and hassle, for these XML reports. We would like any XML report-generating software to work with our existing office suite, and we would like to be able to create easily from XPath queries these wonderful XML reports. Don't lay all your coins on the table for your XML reports; get a dependable, user-friendly, and versatile reporting and document generation system instead, and spend your time on the things you really enjoy.

SQL Reporting Software

          You start with a pig. Two big ears, each one covered with stiff bristley hairs. Two beady eyes. A long snout with an upturned nose displaying two large, widely spaced nostrils, and, under that, a mouth which can take in and chew up just about anything. Not much of a neck, and no shoulders to speak of. Four cloven hooves at the ends of short legs. A rounded belly, and a curly tail. Those are the parts of the pig we can see. Then inside of your average pig are intestines and lungs, and a stomach and a heart, and probably some things with fancier names, like an esophagus and an appendix. Now between that pig -- pink or black or brown or a little of each -- and your breakfast sausage are a lot of steps that you probably don't want to know about and certainly don't want to be involved in personally. You just want to know there was a pig (preferably healthy), and now there is juicy tasty sausage.

          Getting information about your own business is just about the same process as going from pig to breakfast link. There is data (preferably accurate), and lots of it, stored away inside of your systems. And at the end of the day, you would like to have some nice juicy reports for your own uses and perhaps to send on to clients or potential business partners. (If you send reports out by mail, you might consider enclosing some locally produced sausage to ensure they are met with a smile on the other end). You don't really want to know in detail what happens between data and report, you just want it to happen, and you want the reports to come out looking good and containing all the information you need. And you really don't want to be personally involved in every step of the process which takes the raw data from your servers and, bit by bit, formats, organizes, edits, selects, highlights, and otherwise butchers it. You don't want to fight different interfaces and different compatibilities and different formats and all the issues which come along with doing these projects by hand.

          In short, you have a SQL server database, and you want SQL reports -- without getting your hands dirty, and without being dragged into yet another conversation about why your macros won't transition properly. You can dig into the intestines and stomach lining and liver and kidneys and get blood all over your hands and up to your elbows -- or you can get a good quality SQL reporting and document generation software to take care of the messy bits for you. Getting from SQL server data to a SQL report requires a good bit of mucking about, and some of the reporting software available these days can take a lot of the dirty work out of generating SQL reports.

          There are a few basic things you want from your SQL report software. First of all, no pig should make the butcher buy a whole new set of knives -- the SQL report software should work seamlessly with the user interfaces to which your employees are accustomed. Second, cutting up the pig shouldn't take so long that the meat rots -- you want your SQL reports to be generated quickly and efficiently -- pages per second, not seconds per page. You want to be able to make kielbasa or hot dogs or weisswurst -- your software should enable you to create SQL reports in any of the widely used popular document formats. And just as some sausages are relatively simple to make and others result from terribly complicated processes, you want to be able to make complex queries of your software. Finally, the process of making sausage should be like magic, not like pulling fingernails -- you want software with a wizard to guide you through the process of creating SQL reports.  And if you could get an unlimited number of sausages from one pig, like you can get unlimited SQL reports from new software, well, then you'd be just about in hog heaven.

          Those who like to see the lining of pigs' intestines and otherwise love to dig in to dirty work can still try to generate reports from their SQL server databases manually. Mind-numbingly obtuse instructions for doing so are available online on sites like (http://www.colestock.com/blogs/2008/04/how-to-generate-reports-against-oracle.html); or you could buy a How-to-Cut-Your-Own-Pig guide (http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Oracle-SQL-Started-Writing/dp/0972751378); or you could save yourself a lot of time, energy, frustration, and perhaps even disgust, by purchasing software to create SQL reports for your company instead. SQL reports are sausage. We all want our sausage to be of a consistently high quality, without too much mucking about.

Teeing Off on Reporting Software

            The feet are shoulder-width apart, the front foot turned just a bit toward the flag.  Left arm straight, right arm slightly angled.  The thumb of his left hand rests against the heel of his right, as the fingers curl firmly around the grip of the club.  He looks out over the beautiful green expanse, sighs contentedly to himself, looks down at the ball, and lets his arms swing back, left arm still straight.  Down come the arms, the club swings through the ball, and a sweet “ping” echoes from a clean hit.  No slices this afternoon, and no hours wasted hunched over a desk troubleshooting someone else’s problems so the boss can get a clean report of this month’s data.  As the programmer strolls down the fairway towards his ball, he asks himself whether the popularity of high-quality reporting software is in some way connected to the rising cost of green fees these days, as so many programmers and report designers seem to be getting out of the office early each day.  No matter, he concludes – it’s awfully nice to be outside on a day like this.

            Most of us work to live; we don’t live to work.  Each hour in the office is an hour not spent on the golf course or in the home or relaxing with friends.  Just as our companies all need to become more efficient to gain competitive advantage, so each of us wants to become more efficient in the office to gain more time doing the things we love to do.  All too often, translating the data we have into the knowledge we need can eat up hundreds of hours which we would all rather spend anywhere but the office.  Modern reporting software – which is designed to quickly and seamlessly bridge the gap between complicated data and simple reports – can drastically cut busy time for programmers, report designers, and managers, and can give workers of all stripes more time to work on their short game.

            Work would be a lot more simple if management could digest raw data, if the brains of customers, clients, and co-workers could sift through numbers and information and pull out the relevant and important bits.  But few of us can do that efficiently.  As a result, we need something to take the data from our spreadsheets, documents, and presentations, and turn it into readable and visually impressive reports.  In many firms, in-house software solutions require employees to re-input data into special formats, then plug that data into a rough template, then clean up the result to make a passable report, then fight to convert the final product from one format into the one preferred by the end user.  And of course there are many bugs and hitches along the way, which we learn to avoid or jury-rig or just ignore, and so we spend our precious time re-entering data, re-formatting reports, and re-working work that surely could and should be handled more easily.  Reporting software takes away all the wasted effort and gives back all your wasted time.  It works with the most popular office software programs to create customizable reports which can be saved in a variety of user-ready formats.

            No longer do workers need to learn to operate new software to generate quality reports, nor do programmers and report designers need to develop their own proprietary systems for creating informative and visually impressive materials for management and clients.  Gone is the wasted time.  Reporting software can bridge the gap between the most popular word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software and the kind of standardized reports, letters, graphs, and documents which translate data into knowledge.  In today’s information-centered economy, plenty of us can accomplish much of the same work done by reporting software – but good reporting software can do it many times more quickly, and with far fewer mistakes along the way.            

            Manufacturers of reporting software include many familiar names and many other corporations which focus most or all of their efforts on creating the best and most user-friendly reporting software (a list of popular reporting software is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reporting_software).  Each of these companies is in the business of giving you back your free time.  Reporting software makes your business more efficient and more productive, and that means it saves you time.  And, at the end of the day, a bit more free time is something we could all use.

            More information on the advantages of reporting software is available here: http://ezinearticles.com/?Using-Business-Reporting-Software&id=4120675.  More information on what to do with the free time you gain from reporting software is available in the many books and articles of golf fans such as Dan Jenkins and Rick Reilly.  Then when you tee off in the early afternoon on a pitch-perfect weekday with the sun blazing overhead, think of your colleagues still sweating away in the office, and tip your hat to your new reporting software.

SE Asian Countries Design Tourniquets to Cut Off Their Own Lifestream

Condensed from "Dams on Mekong river generate discord as environment suffers," by Yoolim Lee, published in the Phnom Penh Post, Oct. 29, 2010.  All text below is copyright Lee/the Phnom Penh Post.

     The Mekong river sparkles in the early morning sun as Somwang Prommin, a stocky fisherman wearing a worn-out black T-shirt and shorts, starts the motor of his boat.  As the tiny craft glides on the river's calm surface in the northeastern Thai district of Chiang Khong, Somwang points to a nearby riverbank.  Three days ago, he says, the water levels there were 3 meters higher.
     The Mekong, which translates roughly as "mother of the waters" in the Thai langauge, has become unpredictable since China started building hydropower dams and blasting the rapids upstream, according to Somwang, 36, who has been fishing for a living since he was 8 years old.
     In August 2008, devestating floods reduced his catches and income.  Early this year, he witnesses the most severe drought in his life.
     Tens of millions of people are experiencing similar currents of change along the 4,800-kilometer-long Mekong, which flows through six countries and is Southeast Asia's longest river.
     The Mekong and its tributaries provide food, water and transportation to about 60 million people in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.  Their livelihood is now threatened as their governments turn to hydroelectric dams along the river to generate power and create revenue.
     [Proposed] projects will have a disastrous impact on Cambodia and Vietnam, says Milton Osborne, a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and a historian who wrote The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future.  "What the Chinese are doing shows a selfish lack of concern for the serious damage their dams will ultimately do to the downstream countries," Osborne says.
     Downriver, other countries are pursuing their own objectives.  Laos has proposed building 10 hydropower plants on the mainstream of the Mekong that will export electricity and transform the nation -- one of Asia's poorest, with a per-capita gross domestic product of US$886 -- into what the government calls "the battery of Southeast Asia."
     Cambodia plans to build two dams near the border with Laos.  In all, 12 dams are planned by the countries below China along the mainstream of the Mekong.  The dams would transform 55 percent of the downstream river into a reservoir, making it into a series of impoundments with slow water movement.  [A] report prepared by an independent consulting firm in Australia recommended that the [Mekong River Commission] delay any decision on constructing the dams for 10 years.
     The dams "have the portential to create transboundary impacts and international tensions," the report says.  "One dam across the lower Mekong mainstream commits the river to irrevocable change."
     Chinese officials say they are aiding the environment, not harming it.  Building dams "is an important step taken by the Chinese government to vigorously develop renewable and clean energy and contribute to the global endeavor to counter climate change," Song Tao, the country's vice minister of foreign affairs, told a summit meeting of the MRC in April.