Apache PDFBox - A Java PDF Library

I wanted to share my recent learning on PDF creation using PDFBox Java API. More technical details about this documented below.

The Apache PDFBox library is an open source Java tool for working with PDF documents. This project allows creation of new PDF documents, manipulation of existing documents and the ability to extract content from documents.

Features:

Create PDFs:

 Create a PDF from scratch, with embedded fonts and images.

Signing Digitally:

 Sign PDF files.

Print:

 Print a PDF file using the standard Java printing API.

Preflight:

 Validate PDF files against the PDF/A-1b standard.

Fill Forms:

 Extract data from PDF forms or fill a PDF form.

Split & Merge:

 Split a single PDF into many files or merge multiple PDF files.

Extract Text:

 Extract Unicode text from PDF files. Save as Image Save PDFs as image files, such as PNG or JPEG.

Other alternative frameworks/tools to generate PDF in java:

• iText: nowadays iText is a commercial library, the latest version is not for free anymore.

• FOP: I worked a lot with FOP. It's fairly resource intensive (Java > XML > XSLT > PDF) and complex PDFs become a nightmare ( may result in XSLTs with 20k+ LoC).

• PDFBox: it seems to be the best alternative although I did not work with it in large project.

More details about this can be found from my previous blog at http://nanjundanonlinedictionary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/wanted-to-generate-pdf-and-ms-excel.html

FOP is much performance optimized solution to create a PDF. It also comes with few limitations like digital signing, split&merge etc. iText and PDFBox offers almost same features from its library. Please be aware that iText is much performance optimized solution compare to PDFBox as the parsing techniques used.

Happy Learning,

Nanjundan Chinnasamy

Use “Whatsapp” to resolve customer queries

This blog is all about improving “Customer Service” further from the where we are now. It's an Ideation Blog. 

Like banks across the world, Organizations might have a presence on social media platforms, allowing customers to contact them through Facebook and Twitter to respond to questions, queries and providing support.  But, Is this enough? Simple answer is NO from Customer expectation perspective and my perspective as well.

Smartphone access continues to increase; WhatsApp is now the most popular messaging app across the Globe.  According to Mobile Marketing Magazine, it is installed on half of the Smart phones in the UK (76% in INDIA).  Despite its huge popularity, we haven’t utilized the technology to communicate with our customers.

Since we are already responding to customer queries via telephone calls, emails and website live chats and other social media channels, is it worth considering using other platforms in the same way? This may be the right time to Consider such Change.

Customer Benefits are:

1. Easily accessible platform, already installed on many mobile devices worldwide.
2. As messages are free to send, there’s no cost to your customers when they contact you.
3. Easy to use, and allows messages to be sent at any time – day or night

Whatapp may be one of the greatest ways to connect with the customer. Here in India, Police provided a Whatsapp no to report a compliant. Do you think this will be a right way to leverage the Technology and help our customer? I think so.

We do have few potential drawbacks from a business perspective:

• Security – there’s ongoing concerns about how secure WhatsApp messages really are, so it might not be a brilliant idea to ask for any sensitive information.
• No Public API is available at this moment to integrate with any of our Systems. Hope, Whatsapp may publish their APIs in near future. 

We may have good option to use WhatsApp in novel ways to connect with our Customers improve their queries&issues. (More over if any critical issues, those will not be publically visible to media unlike Social media).

Your comments please...

Project Management - Business outcome-based pricing models

As a Successful Project Manager, we are constantly looking for Process improvement to reduce the Cost and Quality product on time. Despite of religiously following an existing pricing models like Time&Labor & Fixed Bid, we end-up with disappointments many times. This blog is an Ideation blog to share my thought process on Project Operating Model.   

I have gone through an article about “Business out-come based pricing model” last week. It was very interesting read and I felt that it is much needed for us at this point of time due to many factors including quality of deliverables received from suppliers from outsourcing.

We might have seen many emails stating that there was an issue with System A/B/C, please apologize to all customers for any inconvenience caused etc. I strongly believe the outcome-based pricing model will be a promising solution to prevent such issues if we considered as the supplier will be paid only based on the outcome.

Deriving the out-come SUCCESS criteria for any project will be complicated and which may leads mistrust. If we formalize the SUCCESS criteria for a project prior to outsourcing, outcome-based pricing model will be a real game changer i believe. 

Read business outcome-based pricing model first post link at http://www.firstpost.com/business/igate-aims-to-shake-up-it-billing-model-with-outcome-based-pricing-635462.html

Please post your opinions/suggestion in the comments section below to understand your views..


Thanks,
Nanjundan Chinnasamy

Good Luck Rule – How to be Successful in Professional and Personal Life..

As many of you know, I am more interested in empowering people around me personally by sharing my leanings through various ways like presentation,  motivational speaking and writing few blogs (Other than technical, of course!).

I want to share my recent leanings to my audience about “GoodLuck Rule”. I don’t believe in Luck. Then, why am I writing on Good Luck? Do you think it’s all about Luck which is Good? No, No.. Stop your imagination here.. Here are Good Luck Rules (10 Rules)....

1. Luck will not stay long as it is not created by you. GOOD LUCK is something created by you. It will come till the end. So, take it till the end.
2. Many want Good Luck, but very few willing to pursue it. Be ready to pursue any time.
3. Create New conditions. Yes, It’s required.
4. Good luck is not only for your own benefit. Others problem might be solution for you. Try to help others. Most important one..
5. Hard work, and do it TODAY. Specific to me I think. I known to be delaying few things..
6. Don’t miss even small details. Small info can help you to discover. Yes, be conscious during important discussions.
7. Don’t worry about the chance. Try again. Yes, don’t give-up!
8. Nobody can sell Good luck. It can’t be sold. Don’t trust those who are willing to sell luck. Many of them doing this I think.
9. Be patient, don’t Quit. It’s easy to say. But, very difficult to follow.
10. Good luck = Opportunity + Conditions

a.    Opportunity is common to all.

b.    Need to create conditions to take that.

And finally, we want to be prepared enough to grab an opportunity when it comes. This may require some level of patient. We may need to create Conditions to grab an opportunity sometimes… In my opinion, I think many successful people do the second one. What do you think? 

PS:

This is the summary of the book which I read recently.  

Thanks,

Nanjundan Chinnasamy