Tron Systems

22/08/2014

Continuing our search for good frameworks we've turned attention to the back-end (we're still intending to get back with a brief summary of Angular vs Dojo).
When we've done PHP projects In the past we've used Zend Framework. We liked ZF1 and successfully deployed some projects. We tried using ZF2 on some internal projects but found a big overhead compared to the guts of the code being written. We're just completing a migration to Slim framework (http://www.slimframework.com/). This seems a good fit with our philosophy in that it is professional but light-weight and you can spend more time writing business logic than plittering about with configuration files. We like it.

Slim is a micro framework for PHP 5 that helps you quickly write simple yet powerful web applications and APIs

16/01/2014

Wanted to share a recent experience with Lotus Domino on a virtual server.
We have a client who uses Notes/Domino for mail / traveler and a small number of applications. They only have a few users and were finding that having their server on an unreliable broadband line meant that they were sometimes struggling when they were away and things went wrong with the server. We suggested that they use a cheap virtual server to host the Lotus Domino installation. We recommended a VPS from 1&1 as we've had good experiences with them in the past. We suggested a server with guaranteed minimum 2Gb memory which should be fine for their needs as they didn't really want to run anything other than Domino.
The install was fine (apart from Domino being rather keen to have a GUI). The server started fine but after a bit of activity (replication, or database access) it collapsed in a big heap.
We could see that the shmpages was maxing out into the red zone when it went. Cue lots of research and playing about with Domino INI file settings but nothing changed the way the shmpages was being handled. The document (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27039628&aid=1) from IBM got us going in the right direction. The difference with the example they gave was that we needed to decrease the shmall variable rather than increase it.

So for our 2Gb server the calculation was
2*1024^3/4096 = 524288

Except that our actual VPS was confined to a much smaller number (max value of shmpages). As a result we used the maximum value allowed for our VPS which was

32768

We issued the
sysctl -p

Server started and ran fine and has been running well for several months.

09/12/2013

We're always looking for the best ways of developing so that we can give our customers most "bang per buck" so we're looking at JavaScript MVC frameworks to sit against RESTful back ends. Angular (http://angularjs.org/) looks interesting so we'll report back (at some time) with how we find it.

AngularJS is what HTML would have been, had it been designed for building web-apps. Declarative templates with data-binding, MVW, MVVM, MVC, dependency injection and great testability story all implemented with pure client-side JavaScript!

09/12/2013

Just gone live with a second application for our friends at the charity. This time it is for managing the staff and residents at a care home.
Once again we're using Dojo and BIRT reports in a PHP, MySQL, Apache and Tomcat environment. One added nice feature is the ability to do disaster recovery on mobile phones - we set up a mobile site (looks like an app) where the contact details of staff and residents are available and where they can be marked as accounted for.

09/12/2013

We've ended up making quite a lot of use recently of reporting tools. We've used both BIRT (http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/) and Jasper Reports (http://community.jaspersoft.com/project/jasperreports-library). The Jasper one is particularly interesting as we're embedding into XPages applications meaning that well-formatted reports are a cinch to produce. This is working well in a couple of applications including our event management system (which now has over 11,000 users by the way).

Eclipse is probably best known as a Java IDE, but it is more: it is an IDE framework, a tools framework, an open source project, a community, an eco-system, and a foundation.

09/12/2013

Another project launched. This time it is a full blown event management system built in XPages with an Ingres database at the back end.

09/12/2013

We're pleased to say that our app for the Forestry Commission is live on both iTunes and the play store:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tree-alert/id582936354?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tron.treediseases&hl=en_GB
Help the Forestry Commission save our trees.

Get Tree Alert on the App Store. See screenshots and ratings, and read customer reviews.

03/12/2012

It has been a long (and busy) summer. Our project with Dojo and PHP has taken us somewhat (a lot!) longer than we hoped. We don't charge extra if we estimate incorrectly so I think our client has a good deal. However, the results are good and the application is very sophisticated and also very usable. We've learnt a lot about Dojo and Zend Framework forms into the bargain.

06/02/2012

We recently saw friends at Miascape (www.miascape.com). They're full of ideas and great company and we might even get to do a joint iPhone project with them once we all get some free time.

06/02/2012

We recently saw friends at Miascape (www.niascape.com). They're full of ideas and great company and we might even get to do a joint iPhone project with them once we all get some free time.

06/02/2012

Very busy at the moment with 3 tenders on the go as well as our ongoing work. We've still managed to get time to do some nice research work into integrating Birt and Notes (to report on Lotus Notes databases) and we're hoping to do a bit more of a feature on that in the future. Also now looking at integrating Jasper Reports and Lotus Notes, so we'll provide some updates about that soon.

22/12/2011

Well we're shutting up shop now until the New Year. We'll still be available for support calls but not on the general switchboard.
We would like to wish everyone, and particularly our customers, a very happy break and prosperous New Year.