Working With Adobe LiveCycle Designer

Adobe live cycle designer is usually used to create 'forms'. You can use your own form or you can use templates and modify them according to your needs. 

It is very easy to create forms for varying needs using Adobe LiveCyle Designer. I have experienced creating 'forms' using Adobe LiveCycle Designer available with Adobe Acrobat 8 and 9. So I can say it for sure that these two versions can support you with creating Adobe 'forms'.

So lets start to create a form. I am going to give examples using Adobe Acrobat 9. Whether it is Acrobat 8 or 9, you have two options to create a 'form'.

1. Using available templates.
2. Start with your own.

Click on 'New form Template' to start from a template. You will get a whole lot of templates to choose one from.Look at the list in the window below.

Select the template you want and click next to proceed. You will be taken through the available steps where you get a place to insert all the company details and ultimately creating the required form. 

You can even set the email address to forward the form, a print button to facilitate printing as shown in the window below. And lot more things after  template creation as well

Click on Finish to finish the creation.

So now you got your 'form' and you can even customize it according to your needs. Here you can see the Design view.

Click on the Preview PDF tab to preview the PDF. You will be getting a view as below.

Then you can go again to the Design tab and use Object Library as shown below to to do modifications to your 'form'. You can drag and drop objects from the object library.

You can edit the gragged and dropped objects as well. For that, first of all you have to click on the object you want to edit. Ex: Radio Button. Then go to View --> Object Editor

You will get the following view. In Adobe 8, you wont get this view. Instead you will get a nice Object Property window to proceed with editing.

So now do the changes to the objects according to your wish. Add or remove objects and try to land in your desired form.

Central Authentication Service(CAS)

CAS is a trusted way of authenticating a user. CAS provides an enterprise single sign-on protocol for a web.

What is a single sign-on protocol?

A single sign on protocol allows a user to enter a user name password once and gain access to multiple applications or systems.  So CAS enables a user of several applications to log in once, providing credentials and use all the applications or modules. From the application's side, this eliminates multiple prompts which are needed when user switches from one application to the other. 

A single sign on protocol operates very strictly with the applications which are being accessed by a web browser. It operates in a nice way.

Lets say there is a request to access a web resource which is using single-sign on. This request is initially being obstructed by a component in the web browser, or by the resource/application it self. So then what happens is that, the unauthenticated users are diverted to an authentication service and returned only after a successful authentication. 

Following are the advantages of using CAS

• CAS has a centralized user login implementation and experience.
• The application pool which uses the central authentication service does not know the password of the user so that there exist less opportunity for a password to be exposed by a weak application.
• CAS offers features for proxy authentication as well.
• Ability to enforce uniform enterprise authentication and authorization policies across a system is another advantage.
• End to end user audit sessions to improve security reporting and auditing is another benefit.
• Application developers are at ease as they are relieved from understanding and implementing identity security  in applications.

Image courtesy : https://confluence.ucdavis.edu/confluence/display/IETP/About+CAS

Creating Table of Content in Word 2007

Most of the time the writers start to think about adding a Table of Contents(ToC) at the completion of the document. It is not a good thing to practice. I was used to do this in past. I faced a lot of troubles since I planned at the end and ended up with adding tables and content separately. 

We need to apply built in Styles or our own creations (user defined styles) to the document as the initial step, before adding a Table of Contents. So that we have a structure and also we  are aware of the text that is going to be appeared on our ToC. 

So start the below steps when your ready with your document.

1. Click on the page to add table of contents.Go to References tab and locate Table of Contents panel.

2. Click on Table of Contents

3. You will get a menu with built in ToCs. If you have your own preferences, then these built in ToCs might not be useful to you.Still there is an option for you.  Click on Insert Table of Contents to start customizing your own.

 
Table of contents tab will be open for you to edit fields once you have selected Insert Table of Contents option.

4. Change Show levels field to increase or decrease the number of heading levels to be appeared on your ToC. The Print Preview will change accordingly, giving an idea on the ToC's appearance.

5. Use Options button to open Table of Contents Options.

If you want to remove a particular heading from the Available styles  then click on relavent TOC level text boxes and delete it. Then assign the TOC level numbers to the preferred TOC level fields.

 6. Use Modify button to change the font style appearing on the ToC. We can modify each ToC level by selecting each TOC.

 After doing all the modifications click on OK and the Table of Content will appear at the selected page.

Then what you have to do when you have updated your document with new content.Simply right click on your table of contents and select on Update field. Select from the options; Update page numbers only or Update entire table according to the requirement.

Adding Cross References to Figures - in Word 2007

A Cross Reference in a word document assist us in adding a reference to a figure or any other object(headings, bookmarks, captions, numbered paragraphs, tables, footnotes, end notes) located in our document through a paragraph text.

Eg: Find the related diagram in Figure 2.1 on page 13. 

In above example, the highlighted fields are the cross references in the paragraph text. If we use cross reference in Word, then Word will do automatic updates to the cross references. So that we don't need to go to each and every reference and edit them, if we have added or deleted new objects. 

To cross reference a figure , follow the below steps.

1. Select the caption of the figure
2. Go to References ribbon
3. Locate the Captions panel
4. Click on Cross Reference. But don't Insert the cross reference until the below steps are followed.




5. Then click on the paragraph to add a cross reference.
6. Edit the fields in  Cross-Reference dialog box.

7. Choose the Reference type from the drop down.

As we are adding a cross reference to a figure select Figure. 

8. Then select the preferred option from Insert reference to: drop down.

If you need to add the cross reference with only the figure label and number, then select Only label and number or choose the desired from the available options.

9. Then select the object that we want to refer in the paragraph text from For which caption. 

10. Click on Insert. The caption will be added to the paragraph text. 

Adding captions to figures - in Word 2007

Adding captions to a quite a lot of images and formatting them one at a time is a very time consuming task. Instead of doing so, we can use MS Word's built in functions.

Lets first try to insert a caption with a preferred formatting to an image. Follow the steps below.

Tips : Always use the Insert-->Picture method to insert a picture to a word document in order to avoid any hassles. I was used to drag and drop or copy and paste an image from a image folder which gave me a lot of troubles. But now using the correct method and I'm hassle free.      

1. Select the picture
2. Go to References ribbon
3. Locate Captions panel
4. Click on Insert Caption

You will get the following Caption dialog box.

Change the Label to suite your requirement. It can be a Figure, Table, Equation or anything you want. You can add whatever you want by using New Label.

Position will let you define the placement of the caption.

More options for numbering the figure is available at Numbering. Use Include Chapter Number to add chapter numbers to the figure as well.

So do the changes according to your wish and proceed. The caption will be available along with the image. Apply Styles to the caption if you want to change the formatting.

USSD and Service Codes

USSD stands for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data. )It is a protocol which is used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the service provider's computers.

USSD today is being used to provide a vast number of services. Such as menu-based information services, mobile banking, WAP browsing, location-based content services and many more.

How does USSD work ?

Information through USSD is sent directly from a sender’s mobile handset to an application handling the USSD service. The USSD service might locate in the sender’s mobile network or in a visited mobile network as well. 

To send  USSD information, there need to establish a real-time “session” between the mobile user and the USSD application platform. This real time session is initiated when the USSD service is invoked. So it is obvious that USSD is not working as SMS. Both can be distinguished from each other because SMS has a store and forward mechanism while USSD has a real time session initiation. As a result of the real time session, data is being sent back and forth between the mobile user and the USSD application platform until the USSD service is completed. More over this makes USSD more responsive when compared to services which use SMS.

What are USSD service codes ?

Specific 'MMI strings' (MMI stands for Man Machine Interaction) or telephone numbers can be dialed from a user’s “mobile station” (mobile handset) to initiate USSD services. These numbers can be named as USSD Service Codes as well. 

3GPP TS 22.090 specifies the standard format for USSD service codes. According to the standards the code format should be as follows;

“1, 2 or 3 digits from the set (*, #) followed by 1X(Y), where X=any number 0-4, Y=any number 0-9, then, optionally “* followed by any number of any characters”, and concluding with # SEND”.

So the application developers can build and install services ( eg: a menu driven service) within a particular mobile network and let the users obtain their service via USSD. 

Image courtesy : http://blog.arrivedok.mobi/tag/ussd/

Working with ‘Styles’ in word 2007

There are predefined set of Styles available in ‘Styles’ panel located at ‘Home’ ribbon. However, the people who write documents adhering to certain standards are not contended with these styles at all, as they have their own styles and standards for document formatting.

Think of a situation, where you are writing headings, sub headings and content for 10-12 chapters of a document and applying different font sizes, colors and thicknesses to achieve variations. You will definitely have to put much effort and time on this document creation task. 

But you can create your own styles very easily and use them to achieve variations in your document.It is very easy. Follow the steps below;

1. Go to 'Home' ribbon-->'Styles' panel and click on the arrow shown below.

2. From the 'Style' window, select New Style icon.

3. Then you will land on 'Create New Style from Formatting'. Now, create your styles as your wish....

I created a brown colored heading of size 26 with a hyphen. More formatting options are available in the 'Format' menu available at the bottom right side. 

4. Now the created style is available in the 'styles' panel. Write down the words, then click on your created style to apply formatting. It is easy as that.