I designed the look and feel and am very happy with the outcome. I have also exclusively worked on the project and have programmed it in Codeigniter (PHP) running on a MySQL database. I have also extended my application framework to now include template themes so even though this is same framework I have used for iThawt and Compass it looks completely different. It took me 2 hours to load up the new theme so I am very happy with that development.

Hopefully we can release this soon so watch this space for more information.

The current version still runs on MySQL as a persistence layer but now runs a Java backed-end for handling the logic. I created the new interface application and communicate via a web service in the form of custom XML structures. This gave us a lot more flexibility and have since found much greater return speed. The database was also redesigned and now includes a much stronger structure for handling large data.

This is without a doubt the biggest and most rewarding project I have ever worked on and have invested a lot of time and energy into making this something special. Currently in a Beta style release the general sign-up rate is higher than expected with a total of 16 customers trying it out within the first few weeks. A lot of work still needs to be done but this is a ever evolving application that from a methodological point of view will never be complete.

My contribution was the entire front-end concept and development using a lot of AJAX calls to achieve a more application like feel. I also developed the application view framework as well as the communicator layer for communicating with the Java services. The design style is consistent and robust. All request are very quick and served back to the browser in quick succession. It runs in an Amazon cloud utilizing Amazon EC2 and S3 storage.

I also created the website to accompany the release.

To check it out signup at www.ithawt.com

The archive stores database data in a MySQL database whilst running on a dedicated Microsoft server box. Another challenge was the limitation of large companies with regards to application permissions. To overcome this I decided a web app would be best as all companies can easily allow access to certain websites without grossly compromising their network.

Another major challenge was the way browsers handle .tiff format image files. To date .tiff’s are not really a browser friendly format so we created a java service that puts the images through a conversion process into .png which is widely accepted. Other functionality includes the ability to handle user permission groups, mail groups of documents to a particular address, the editing of indexing information and the ability to see reports on the current status.

To date we store over 2 terabytes of scanned information with over 12 million active records and still going strong. A large amount of data is constantly being inserted into the system and it still stands strong.

I am very proud of this project and did all coding and database structure as well as design and web work. It has since been upgraded to include a new database and file structure as well as completely new interface.

Go to www.emergeios.co.za to see the applications

Demo login details:

Username: demo@emerge.co.za

Password: demo

The few explanations I found were not very helpful, from there is too much wireless activity in your office…ok, there is a conflict with another device, hello they use a large randomly generated key identifier (what are the chances that these devices would share the same key) and that your iPhone bluetooth seems to have an effect.

I turned off the wireless router and all other devices and deactivated my iPhone bluetooth.  Problem persisted.  Then I came across another post that recommended making your Magic Mouse a favorite device under the bluetooth settings and behold success and no more problems for like a week.

So in order to this go to System Preferences->Bluetooth->Apple Wireless Mouse.  Click on the gear icon at the bottom of the list and click “Add to Favorites”.  You might want to restart but most Apple effects are immediate, at least mine was.

For everyday users like myself, I prefer to stay away from the terminal or command line and stick exclusively to using my wonderful graphical interface.  I mean a mac screen is so pretty, who wouldn’t want to?

For this reason I went hunting for a good rar decompressor for the Mac and here are a couple of links that I found.

Mac OS X Command Line:

I kind of had to include it here just because it’s the official Rarlab release.  Wouldn’t really recommend it though.  Link Here

RAR Expander:

Expander is in a beta release still, but does what you need it to, at least it has for me.  Doesn’t seem to break and for the time is completely free.  Always a bonus.  Link Here

UnRarX:

I have yet to try this one, but a friend sent me the link when I asked about an Mac Unrarer.  He thought the name was appropriate to my question.  Link Here

Stuffit Expander:

I think a lot of people know about Stuffit, but if you don’t it is one of the popular archive tools around.  You can use a free version or a deluxe version that costs $30.  Link Here

Lets take a straight HTML example.

First we have our upload form and typically we will have the follow example:

<form action=”http://www.somewebsite.com/save_path” method=”post” enctype=”multipart/form-data”>
<input type=”file” name=”uploadFieldName” value=”">
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit”>
</form>

When we submit this form we can access the $_FILES details array like such (this is using php by the way):

echo $_FILES['uploadFieldName']['name'] ;

That is now the item I log in my history table.  You will notice a few things.  Firstly the first array item is the “name” of the upload field letting php know what field array to access.  The second array item is the property you wish to access, in this case the file name.  The second example uses multiple file uploads.  With Ithawt we can attach multiple things at a time, like:

<form action=”http://www.somewebsite.com/save_path” method=”post” enctype=”multipart/form-data”>
<input type=”file” name=”uploadFieldName” value=”">
<input type=”file” name=”uploadFieldName_1″ value=”">
<input type=”file” name=”uploadFieldName_2″ value=”"> 
<input type=”submit” value=”Submit”>
</form>

To access all the names you can loop through the array like so:

foreach($_FILES as $key => $value)
{
echo $_FILES[$key]['name'] ;
}

On a side note, you can access more than just the name of the file being uploaded.  I believe you can also access things like data modified and file size, which is all very useful.

Compass Docs is the successor to our Emerge IOS digital archive, which we use to scan and store millions of images for live filling or archiving.  Essentially we scan in, say your POD’s and make them available for viewing within a few minutes of being digitized so that your accounts department can process the order.  You can scan anything with us and have it online quickly.

I built that app and while it currently stores more than 6 million images, it never really was what I had planned it out to be.  It has always felt incomplete, a little rushed and unexpected, kind of like the bastard child of my intellectual marriage.  That is why I have been building an application framework called Scrappy App based on Codeigniter slowly in the background for the last year, so that I can truly build the document management app that I wanted.

So while the first step has been the slow after hours development, today was surely the next step as I actually loaded the first beta version of the app onto our server (www.compassdocs.com).  It is far from public release and far from true internal testing but don’t be surprised if in a few weeks you see a notice reading “COMPASS DOCS LIVE”.

I will bring more over the coming days.