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"The Nine Minute Egg"
You are a cook in a remote area with no clocks or other way of keeping time other than a four minute sandglass timer and a seven minute sandglass timer. (The kind you turn over - hourglass shaped) You do have a stove, however, with water in a pot already boiling. Somebody asks you for a nine-minute egg, and you know this person is a perfectionist and will be able to tell if you undercook or overcook the eggs by even a few seconds.
What is the least amount of time it will take to prepare the egg? And how will you prepare it so that it is neither undercooked or overcooked?
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On May 24th we dropped our 2nd Geocaching Travel Bug into the wild. The " BSP Coin Bug" started its journey in Ocean City, MD and is on its way to the Seattle office. If it comes into your town, please help it along its path! |
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| Greetings!
Welcome to this month's BSP Newsletter. We have a lot of educational content this month, along with some great tips and tricks and other IBM Cognos related information as always! And remember, we enjoy hearing your suggestions regarding the content you'd like to see. Please e-mail us at Newsletter@brightstarpartners.com if you have a topic you'd like to see discussed in future newsletters. |
INTRODUCING THE MANY FACES OF BSP |
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Over the last three years, BSP has been publishing monthly newsletters highlighting IBM Cognos tips and techniques, articles of interest, BSP software solutions and more. We've enjoyed the great feedback from you, our audience, and continue to strive for providing timely and useful information to IBM Cognos customers around the globe
Recently, it occurred to us that many of you may know one or even two of BSP's core offerings, but few of you know the full spectrum. BSP stands on four pillars:
Whether your organization is just charting its course towards deployment, in the thrusts of implementation, or maintaining and managing your IBM Cognos solution, BSP can partner with you on the road to success. From license purchases to implementation to expanded capabilities to worldwide support, BSP is a full service organization partnering with our customers for success. |
| THIS IS ONE WEBINAR YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS! |
IBM Cognos Administrators and Consumers alike will benefit from this informative webinar highlighting two consumer-based products from our ever growing portfolio. In addition, every attendee will walk away with a copy of one of the two solutions as a courtesy!
CPM Explorer is a Windows Explorer extension for IBM Cognos Connection, providing quick and easy access to IBM Cognos consumers' daily activities. Using CPM Explorer, consumers are able to navigate the IBM Cognos Connection portal in the familiar Windows Explorer user interface without the need for a web browser.
The BSP Recycle Bin for IBM Cognos was designed to retain content that has been deleted from Cognos Connection. Positioned directly inside of Cognos Connection, users will have their own My Recycle Bin, enabling them to recover deleted items when the need arises. Administrators will have access to the Recycle Bin of all users.
Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CDT
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Fixing Drill-Through Definitions using Find / Replace
This podcast demonstrates how to update the drill-through definitions in Report Studio reports in bulk by using the Find / Replace module. Using this technique you can repoint the target report without losing all of the parameters defined in the drill-through definition.
Please visit www.bspsoftware.com and register for a free account on the site. Once logged in, you can view this and other tips and techniques in the BSP Software Podcast Channel, located under Support >> Podcasts or by clicking http://www.bspsoftware.com/podcasts. |
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GETTING REAL CSV OUTPUT FROM COGNOS |
By Nipun Gupta, Consultant
 CSV (Comma Separated Values) files generated by Cognos returns Tab delimited instead of comma separated values. The problem seems easy enough to fix, but it is tricky as the method of running the report influences the delimiter.
You will need to set parameters to get CSV output from Cognos, which is really a CSV and not tab delimited. Follow the steps below to do this.
- Navigate to Cognos Administration.
- Go to Status -> System
- Set the properties for Batch Report Service.
- In the Advanced Settings, set the following parameters with values
- RSVP.CSV.DELIMITER as ,
- RSVP.CSV.ENCODING as utf-8
- RSVP.CSV.TERMINATOR as CRLF
- These settings will only affect reports which are scheduled as a batch.
- To get CSV files from interactively run reports, set the same parameters for the Report Service also.
Click here to read the complete article with detailed steps and screen shots. |
MAKING AN ON-LINE HELP DOCUMENT IN COGNOS 8 |
By Mark Karas, Senior Consultant
The following is simple technique that combines a Cognos 8 Report Studio report with some embedded HTML that will act as an On-Line help document for your application
It is assumed that basic HTML web page coding knowledge that includes: Tables, Tags, Hyperlinks and use of Stylesheets is available with the developer.
The requirement is to have a document available to outline features/conditions/parameters of a report design from within any report in the system, through a web friendly document that could be accessed via a link from a report.
Steps
- Start by creating an HTML document that we will copy into a Cognos report later.
- In your HTML or text editor of choice, create an HTML web document that contains a menu table and an entry from each menu item that represents a report.
- Menu items are hyperlinks to A tags for each report in the document.
- Use tables to organize the reports into logical and useful groupings.
- What the page looks like is totally up to the developer and requirements. The important thing is that the Report Name's <A> tag's name property in this document must match the Cognos 8 report names exactly, as that is how we will locate them on clicking the on-line help link
Create a report studio report, let's name it "On-Line Help" and let's save it in a Folder named Help that is directly under Public Folders (you can choose to put this object in any folder of your choice, with the understanding you will have to adjust the link text accordingly).
In the report page area, drag an HTML object in and paste in the HTML from the editor.
Run the report... you should see the desired HTML Web page representing your on-line help document. Test the On-Line Help document's internal navigation, if desired, by clicking on a Report from the Menu and check that it re-directs to the entry for that report in the body of the document.
After any/all tweaks are made to the HTML, save the On-Line Help report.
In Report Studio, open one of your reports that requires a link to the On-Line Help document (and has an entry in your On-Line Help document), insert a Hyperlink object, and paste in the following hyperlink text as a Report Expression:
- For Cognosisapi configured systems:
"../cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=cognosViewer&ui.action=run&ui.object=/content/folder[@name='Help']/report[@name='On-Line Help']&ui.name=On-Line Help&run.outputFormat=&run.prompt=true#" + ReportName() + ""
- For Cognos.cgi configured systems:
"../cgi-bin/cognos.cgi?b_action=cognosViewer&ui.action=run&ui.object=/content/folder[@name='Help']/report[@name='On-Line Help']&ui.name=On-Line Help&run.outputFormat=&run.prompt=true#" + ReportName() + ""
Set the text of the Hyperlink: Help
Save the report and from Cognos Connection, execute the report. Click the Help link and the On-Line Help document should open and redirect downward to the entry for this report.
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About These Man-Made  Wonders......
Henderson Waves
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At 12 stories high, Henderson Waves is Singapore's tallest pedestrian bridge. It snakes across Henderson Road, connecting Mount Faber Park and Telok Blangah Hill Park. The bridge, which opened in 2008, is made of seven undulating curved steel ribs that alternately rise over and under its deck. The curved ribs form alcoves that function as shelters with seats within.
The Ledge at Willis Tower
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Check out the view from the Ledge at Willis Tower, formerly Sears Tower, in Chicago. The five-sided balconies, which opened in 2009, are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out 4 feet from the building's 103rd floor Skydeck. They're actually more like boxes than balconies, with transparent walls, floor and ceiling. Visitors can see unobstructed views of Chicago from the building's west side, and a heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below - if they're brave enough to look straight down.
Palm Jumeirah
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Palm Jumeirah is an artificial island, the first and smallest of the three Palm Islands created off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The palm-tree shaped island is so large that it can be seen from the International Space Station. It is currently home to luxury homes and the megaresort Atlantis, The Palm, and will eventually tout many other deluxe hotels. In the years since construction began in 2001, this island effectively has doubled the length of Dubai's coastline.
Grand Canyon Skywalk
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The Hualapai tribe of Arizona commissioned this horseshoe-shaped, glass walkway that opened above the Grand Canyon in 2007. The Skywalk juts off the rim of a side canyon 4,000 feet above the Colorado River. Despite the vertigo-inducing views, the glass bridge reportedly is very sturdy - it can support more than 71,000 pounds and can withstand gusts of wind over 100 mph.
Channel Tunnel
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The Chunnel, as the 31.35-mile tunnel under the English Channel is known, opened in 1994, connecting Calais, France, with Folkestone, England. It is the second-longest tunnel in the world (behind Japan's Seikan railway tunnel), and has the longest underwater section of any tunnel. The Eurotunnel Shuttle is a special vehicle transport train that has the largest rail cars in the world.
Three Gorges Dam
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Located in China's Hubei Province, this largest hydroelectric power station in the world contains a 375-mile-long reservoir within its impressive 7,661-foot concrete bulk. The scale of the controversial project is so huge that it has displaced millions of people, submerged hundreds of cultural sites in the Three Gorges area and precipitated an untold amount of damage on the regional environment. Construction began in 1994, but the dam is not expected to become fully operational until 2011.
Panama Canal
- One of the most difficult engineering endeavors ever attempted, the Panama Canal is a 50.72-mile-long passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that was begun by France in 1880 but completed by the U.S. in 1914. It drastically reduced shipping distances between New York and San Francisco, from 14,000 miles around Cape Horn to 6,000 when passing through the canal. During the American construction phase, 211 million cubic yards of dirt and rock were scraped away over 10 years to finish the canal.
Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge
- Also known as the Pearl Bridge, this structure spans the strait between the islands of Honshu and Awaji in Japan. Upon its opening in 1998, the Pearl Bridge became the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a center span measuring 6,532 feet in length - making it a full quarter-mile longer than the previous record-holder. The entire three-span bridge is more than 12,000 feet long.
The Dreamliner
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The Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off on its long-awaited first flight on Dec. 15, 2009. The Dreamliner is the first commercial airplane that's mostly built from carbon-reinforced plastic. This composite material is light and strong and won't corrode or be susceptible to metal fatigue. Using this kind of construction also reduces both the financial and environmental costs of building a new plane. The first Dreamliner is expected to be delivered to All Nippon Airways in late 2010.
Hoover Dam
- It spans the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. The massive dam, built between 1931 and 1936, is 726.4 feet deep, from foundation rock to the roadway on the crest of the dam. Hoover Dam generates, on average, about 4 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power each year for use in Nevada, Arizona and California - enough to serve 1.3 million people.
International Space Station
- Orbiting Earth with a resident crew since November 2000, the International Space Station is accessible only to enterprising tourists who have bank accounts flush enough to afford approximately $25 million for the round-trip ticket offered by Space Adventures. To date, six space tourists have boarded the ISS to experience days of zero gravity orbiting the planet. However, that number is sure to rise in coming decades as private companies develop commercial spacecraft and programs to make the final frontier a viable travel destination.
Time Warner Center
- This 750-foot tall skyscraper in New York City, which opened in 2003, consists of two towers bridged by an atrium containing upscale retail shops. It was the first major building to be completed in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This "city in a building" contains the offices of Time Warner Inc., residential condominiums, and the Mandarin Oriental, New York hotel. Anderson Cooper 360° broadcasts live here from CNN Studios, and you'll also find the 1,200-seat Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Millau Viaduct
- The Millau Viaduct in southern France, which opened in 2004, is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with a roadway nearly 900 feet in the air. The cable-stayed design gives the bridge the appearance of a row of sailboats at sea, and the masts rise 1,125 feet - higher than the Eiffel Tower.
Oasis of the Seas
- Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas made its debut in 2009 as the world's largest cruise ship. It's nearly five times the gross tonnage of the Titanic and 1 1/2 times longer than the U.S. Capitol building, has 16 decks and a capacity for 6,296 guests. The ship offers weeklong sailings in the eastern and western Caribbean. Cruises depart from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Burj Khalifa
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates, opened the world's tallest skyscraper in January, 2010, and superlatives have poured in ever since. If you stuck the Eiffel Tower on top of the Empire State Building, you still wouldn't have a structure as tall as the Burj Khalifa. It rises 2,717 feet from the desert and provides views of the Persian Gulf, the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab hotel and the man-made Palm Jumeirah island. Originally named Burj Dubai, the building was renamed in honor of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, which pumped tens of billions of dollars into Dubai in 2009 as it struggled to pay enormous debts
Next Month.... New Wonders..... |
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