Premature optimization is the root of all evil

9 months ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

Cricket fever again

9 months ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

The Grand

9 months ago | Suman Thareja: Spice it up!..

Kochi has probably some of the best food I have tasted.  Fresh, spicy, tangy and made with passion!!  Happen to be taken to The Grand Hotel by our driver and turned out to be one of the best meals of the trip. Appam this good is not hard to find in Kerela, though does get [...]

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError + running sunspot:solr:run on windows

9 months ago | Manohar Amrutkar: majestic rails

While running "sunspot:solr:run" on Windows ["sunspot:solr:run" works with windows otherwise use "sunspot:solr:start"] if you are receiving error like -

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: 

'-Djava/util/logging/config/file=C:/DOCUME~1/pli/LOCALS~1/Temp/

logging/properties20100617-11284-furc4v-0'
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException:

'-Djava.util.logging.config.file=C:.DOCUME~1.pli.LOCALS~1.Temp.

logging.properties20100617-11284-furc4v-0'
  at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
  at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
  at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
  at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
  at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
Could not find the main class: 

'-Djava.util.logging.config.file=C:/DOCUME~1/pli/LOCALS~1/Temp/

logging.properties20100617-11284-furc4v-0'.

  Program will exit.  

Please change line no. 74 in server.rb from lib of sunspot gem, 

"exec(Escape.shell_command(command))" 

with "exec(Escape.shell_command(command).gsub("'",'"'))"

For details refer source.

10 reasons why you should learn R

9 months ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

Vehicle Routing Problem

9 months ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

Pavillion

9 months ago | Suman Thareja: Spice it up!..

Pavillion at ITC Maurya in Delhi has some great dining options.  Even though its in Maurya (5-star hotel) its not too formal or too casual. If everyone dining with you is in the mood for a different cuisine, its possible to satisfy all their cravings here. I recommend a tasting platter to begin with.. What [...]

My first 'R' plot

9 months ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

Started learning 'R'.
My first attempt was to plot data from Forbes 1000 list (refer to the exercise posted by Prasoon sharma)

Here is a bubble chart showing Forbes top 25 companies by Market Capitalization

Source code:

## read the csv file
FORBES.DF <- read.csv("forbes2000list_for_2011.csv")

## assign titles
names(FORBES.DF)<- c("Rank", "Company", "Country", "Industry", "Sales", "Profits", "Assets", "MarketCap")

## create a smaller vector
Forbes100ByMC <- FORBES.DF[order(-FORBES.DF$MarketCap),][1:100,]
Forbes25 <- Forbes100ByMC[1:25, ]

## plot the bubble chart using 'symbols'
radius <- sqrt(Forbes25$MarketCap/pi)
sales <- as.numeric(as.character(Forbes25$Sales))
profits <- as.numeric(as.character(Forbes25$Profits))

symbols(sales, profits, circles=radius, inches=0.9, fg="white", bg="light blue", xlab="Sales($'Billions)", ylab="Profits($'Billions)", main="Forbes 25 By Market Capitalization", xlim=c(min(range(sales))-50, max(range(sales))+50), ylim=c(min(range(profits))-2, max(range(profits))+2))
## print the names of companies
text(sales, profits, Forbes25$Company, cex=0.6, col="dark red") 

 
Any feedback toward writting better 'R' code is welcome.

Stacked waterfall charts in highcharts

9 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Check out how to generate stacked waterfall charts using highchart js library.

Integrating Google Re-Captcha with a Rails app

9 months ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

So you want to use re-captcha in your Rails application to avoid bots spamming your site, look no further - In your Rails 3 gem file add the gem “scaffoldhub” Do a – bundle install Lets say you want to …

Read more »

Waterfall chart with Line Connectors

9 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Vision for the Social Enterprise

10 months ago | Michael Idinopulos: Transparent Office

When I talk with CIOs these days, there's one question that comes up again and again: How does it all fit together? How does Social play with my Intranet? How does Social play with my document management system? How does...

quickbooks integration in rails app

10 months ago | Manohar Amrutkar: majestic rails

By the end of this post you will be able to integrate your Web Hosted Application with QuickBooks Online Edition. You will understand below points.

Objectives:
1. Establish a communications channel with QuickBooks
2. Build a set of request messages
3. Send the request messages set to QuickBooks
4. Check the status codes & data in the response message set received from QuickBooks
5. Close the communications channel with QuickBooks


The Basic Communication Model is shown in Fig. 1

                                                                       Fig. 1

Terminologies from Fig. 1
• Developer Application => Rails App
• Request => Https request generated using QBXML
• Response => Response over https in QBXML format.
• Company Owner’s Authorization => Authorization process for security purpose explained in detail in part-1. i.e. Establish a communications channel with QuickBooks
• Request Processor => Its nothing but a QBXML parser which process request from developer application and response from QuickBooks and sent in QBXML format to Developer application.
• QuickBooks => QuickBooks Account.


Now step by step:

1. Establish a communications channel with QuickBooks

Steps to establish connection between developer application and QuickBooks.
1. Obtain a test QBOE (QuickBooks Online Edition) account from IDN for testing during development. These are available to paid memberships and participants in the NFR program.

Purchase an account from QuickBooks
As the quickbooks doesn’t support Multitenant platform, so the process is defined in step-7 for connecting specific account with specific company if you have multitenant rails application.

2. Register your application with IDN (Register your app at appreg.intuit.com)

It’s an IDN Gateway Application Registration which is required to generate an Unique ID which is later used in https requests. You need to register valid https url of rails application with IDN.
URL: https://app_url
APPLICATION ID: Unique App Id generated- You will have some unique id generated eg: 169442259
Please make sure you have valid https ceritificate for the same url. Otherwise redirect it using proxies.

It also asks for some basic URLs which QuickBooks uses for further reference.

Subscribe URL: https://app_url/quickbooks/subscribe
Usually connection ticket is returned in this action when connection to QuickBooks account is created for first time with Rails App.
Change URL: https://app_url/quickbooks/change
Cancel URL: https://app_url/quickbooks/cancel
Login URL: https://app_url/login

3. Obtain a server certificate from a supported root certificate authority. This will be your https certificate.


4. Obtain a client certificate by generating a certificate signing request (CSR) and use the appreg.intuit.com site to get it signed by Intuit.
a) Obtain a client certificate by generating a certificate signing request (CSR):
i. Generate a new key:
ii. $ openssl genrsa -out idn.key 1024
iii. Generate CSR:
iv. $ openssl req -new -key idn.key -out idn-foo.csr
v. IMPORTANT: Common Name (Your Name) needs to be EXACTLY
vi. your.url(THIS MUST BE AN IP ADDRESS OF YOUR HOSTED APP SERVER):your.application.name
b) Get CSR signed at appreg.intuit.com
 Go to site, copy and paste CSR text and sign that bad boy!
c) Create PEM
 The signing process will return a certificate. Copy the certificate to a text file and name it qboe-cert.pem. Now open the key you used to generate the CSR and paste that into the same text file above the certificate.


5. Understand and follow the QBOE security requirements for hosted web applications.

Your hosted web application (Developer Application) needs a server certificate in order to receive callbacks from QBOE. Your hosted web application also needs a client certificate signed by Intuit in order to POST QBOE requests to QBOE. (You need register your application with IDN before you can generate your certificate signing request.)

6 .In your code, using SSL, implement the presentation of the client certificate to be used when posting to QBOE.
The Intuit-signed client certificate must be presented to QBOE at every POST to QBOE sites. You have to use SSL at your web server in conjunction with the client certificate. The client certificate is presented using “pem” feature of httparty gem.

require 'httparty'


class Qboe
  include HTTParty
  base_uri 'https://webapps.quickbooks.com/j/AppGateway'
  format :xml
  headers 'Content-Type' => 'application/x-qbxml'
  pem File.read("#{RAILS_ROOT}/qboe-cert.pem")
end

7. In your code, prompt your customer to grant a connection ticket authorizing your application to access the QBOE Company. Respond by sending the customer to the QBOE login page to get a connection ticket. QBOE POSTs the connection ticket back to the application subscription URL you specified when you registered your application. Handle this POST at that URL and store the connection ticket securely.

Sending the User to QBOE to Create a Connection Ticket
In your main form displayed in the user’s web browser, provide a means for the customer to start the authorization process, for example, a Subscribe button. Whatever the means, respond to the customer’s action by sending the customer to the QBOE login page at the following URL:


Appdata = > company id (It is not required or mandatory but preferred to use if you have multitenant application.) 

After your application gets the POST from QBOE, you need to extract the connection ticket
from the POST in subscribe action.

8. In your code, implement session ticket handling code. That is, prior to sending QBOE requests for a particular customer, get a session ticket by sending a SignonMsgsRq containing a SignonAppCertRq with that customer’s connection ticket. You’ll POST this to the QBOE data exchange URL to get the session ticket in the Signon AppCertRs response.


Eg: session.erb 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?qbxml version="6.0"?>
<QBXML>
   <SignonMsgsRq>
      <SignonAppCertRq>
         <ClientDateTime><%=today%></ClientDateTime>
         <ApplicationLogin><%=APPLICATION_LOGIN%></ApplicationLogin>
         <ConnectionTicket><%=CONNECTION_TICKET%></ConnectionTicket>
         <Language>English</Language>
         <AppID><%=APPLICATION_ID%></AppID>
         <AppVer>1</AppVer>
      </SignonAppCertRq>
   </SignonMsgsRq>
</QBXML>

   APPLICATION_LOGIN = 'app_url'
   CONNECTION_TICKET = 'TGT-68-wltE9aMgPpzDAC46PJwZvQ'
   APPLICATION_ID = '169442259'

  def self.get_session_ticket
      today = Time.now.strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
      xml_to_send = ERB.new(get_file_as_string("lib/quickbooks/session.erb")).result(binding)
      result = post('/', :body => xml_to_send )
      result["QBXML"]["SignonMsgsRs"]["SignonAppCertRs"]["SessionTicket"]
    end


2. Build a set of request messages
Below example explains a request created to create an invoice in QuickBooks.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?qbxml version="6.0"?>
<QBXML>
   <SignonMsgsRq>
    <SignonTicketRq>
      <ClientDateTime><%= today %></ClientDateTime>
      <SessionTicket><%= session %></SessionTicket>
      <Language>English</Language>
      <AppID><%= APPLICATION_ID %></AppID>
      <AppVer>1</AppVer>
    </SignonTicketRq>
  </SignonMsgsRq>
  <QBXMLMsgsRq onError="continueOnError">
    <InvoiceAddRq>
      <InvoiceAdd defMacro="TxnID:1234"><!-- required -->
        <CustomerRef> <!-- required -->
          <ListID>4</ListID>
        </CustomerRef>
        <TxnDate>2010-10-10</TxnDate>
        <!-- BEGIN OR -->
        <InvoiceLineAdd > <!-- optional -->
          <ItemRef> <!-- optional -->
            <FullName >Hours</FullName> <!-- optional -->
          </ItemRef>
          <Desc >Its added from rails app.</Desc> <!-- optional -->
          <Quantity >2</Quantity> <!-- optional -->
          <!-- BEGIN OR -->
          <Rate >111</Rate> <!-- optional -->
          <Amount >101.00</Amount> <!-- optional -->
          <ServiceDate>2010-10-10</ServiceDate>
        </InvoiceLineAdd>
        <!-- OR -->
        <!-- END OR -->
      </InvoiceAdd>
    </InvoiceAddRq>
  </QBXMLMsgsRq>
</QBXML>

Following Fields of Rails App are mapped with QuickBooks Invoice using QBXML.
Rails App (Eg. Time/Expense Field Names)  QuickBooks Invoice Field Names
Contact/Matter Contact (Full Name) => Client Name/Bill To
Time Entry Date/Expense Entry  => Date Service Date
Activity Type/Expense Type => Product/Service
Description => Description
Duration (Hrs) => Qty
Rate/hr ($)  => Rate
Final Bill Amount  => Amount

Actual Mapping in QBXML for expense entry in invoice is explained below.
QBXML:
    <InvoiceAddRq>
      <InvoiceAdd defMacro="TxnID:1234">
        <CustomerRef>
          <ListID>4</ListID>
        </CustomerRef>
        <TxnDate>2010-10-10</TxnDate>
      <InvoiceLineAdd >          
          <ItemRef>
              <FullName >Fax</FullName>
          </ItemRef>
          <Desc >Fax to eric</Desc>          
     <Amount >101.00</Amount>
          <ServiceDate>2010-10-10</ServiceDate>
        </InvoiceLineAdd>
    </InvoiceAddRq>


Eg: To add a client name in QuickBooks invoice we need to send ListID in QBXML request. ListID is acquired by executing a query to QuickBooks, Contact Full Name is the parameter passed to query.
3. Send the request messages set to QuickBooks
It’s done using “post” method from http arty gem.
4. Check the status codes & data in the response message set received from QuickBooks
Usually below set of parameters values exists in every request and response which we need to consider for every request and specifically for responses.

Attributes in Request and Response Messages

5. Close the communications channel with QuickBooks
Basically it not compulsory or needed while accessing QuickBooks Online Edition from Web Hosted application.

Tools & Software: Development Environment

 QuickBooks SDK 8.0
 QBXML Version 6.0
 Ruby 1.8.6
 Rails 2.3.5
 Net Beans IDE 6.7
 Gems: Http arty 0.5.2

References
1. Intuit QuickBooks SDK Technical Overview
2. Intuit QuickBooks SDK Programmer’s Guide
3. Onscreen Reference(OSR)
4. Web site for the Intuit Developer Network (IDN): http://developer.intuit.com
5. Blog: http://jnylund.typepad.com/joels_blog/2010/02/quickbooks-online-integration-from-ruby-on-rails-the-easy-way.html
6. Blog: http://www.depixelate.com/2007/05/03/rails-and-quickbooks-online-integration-part-1/
7. http://www.servicesidekick.com/ (Quickbooks Integration)

points to remember while adding bundler to old rails apps

10 months ago | Manohar Amrutkar: majestic rails

Points to remember while adding bundler to Rails < 3.x.x applications- When I had modified an application based rails 2.3.4 for bundler, it has taken my time to make it work as i forgot below points.
1. Please check if someone had made any changes inside plugins/gems which you have mentioned in gem file now.
2. Please note of gems if you are mentioning them :groups as they are not available to other groups. eg. Gems mentioned in :groups => :test are not available to :group => :development. Eg: if you run rake tasks which uses gem libraries in development and gems are mentioned in :tests group, it will give you errors for required gems.
3. Also make sure about gems and plugins versions which are being used in app and you mentioned Gemfile.


I hope it might save your time.

installation guides

10 months ago | Manohar Amrutkar: majestic rails

These are links/resources i referred for respective software installations.

memcached for Windows
How to install PhyMyAdmin on Centos 5.3
Installing RMagick on Linux, *BSD, or Cygwin systems

Install rubygems without rdoc/ri

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Micro-Blogging Solution for the Enterprise

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Testing Extended Devise Controllers

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Adding routes to rails3 - rspec2 (controller tests)

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Learning

10 months ago | Lalatendu Das: Interpretations of Technorealism

How do you approach the most critical objective of your organization?

Probably you would start by qualifying this objective and start a project to accomplish it. Break it down to smaller goals, milestones and put some planning around it? May be you would further break down the goals into small actionable items and schedule some activities. Some of you would setup a rhythm to periodically accomplish the smaller tasks in order to realize your grand objective.

No matter whatever process or methodology you follow, you would certainly NOT leave your most critical objective to chance..certainly NOT by adopting an ad-hoc approach.

My moment of epiphany arrived when I realized "Continuous Self Learning" is the most critical aspect of my career. Probably the same applies to most of the readers of this blog.

So, how to you approach your personal 'Learning'? Is there a method? Or is it left to chance?

The real purpose of a “Sprint Goal”

10 months ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

The folks who thought of Scrum were really smart guys. I don’t say this because Scrum has worked for me but I say this because the more I think of Scrum, the more I appreciate it. For example, why does …

Read more »

Inspect Rails 3 routes in "console"

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Introducing R in the Enterprise

10 months ago | Prasoon Sharma: Enterprise Software Does not Have to Suck

Rails 3 and Controller Callbacks - demystified

10 months ago | Amit Kumar: RubyizednRailified

Views from across the table

10 months ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

A few weeks back, I had the unique opportunity to visit my old employer, this time however as a customer. It was good to hear some old terms which I last heard when I worked there. It also got me …

Read more »

Thoughts of the week : 24 – 30 April

10 months ago | Rocky Jaiswal: Still learning ... Thoughts of an Agile developer

Busy busy last week. But still got a lot of time to think on my way back home. Only two things that you should aim for – happy teams and delighted customers. Choose any process that gives you these. Why …

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