Sometimes it would be nice to know who is actively logged into your Xinet Portal Server. Unfortunately there is not a current tool offered to retrieve this information...until now!

Using a simple php script it's actually possible to scrape the current php sessions that have been created and obtain a list of users that have active php sessions in Portal.

A little background on this....

On Portal servers php stores it session data inside of th session directory /tmp, this is specified by the session.save_path ini variable. All session files start with the prefix "sess_". Inside of a session file you will find a plethora of serialized text data, that php is managing with its session functions. Although this serialized information is highly unreadable, is is still possible to pick some key data out of it, without needing to go through a deserialization process.

So basically for each user logged in via Portal, a corresponding session file will be created inside of the /tmp directory. Contained within this file will be useful information including the username. So at this point all we need to to is create a php script that will read all the php session files located on the server and displays the count of usernames that it finds!

php code that does this looks like the following:

<?php

//create an empty array to house our users in
$users = array();


//loop through all of the sesssion files found in the php session temporary directory
foreach(glob('/tmp/sess_*') as $session_file){

    //get the contents of the sessions as a string
    $session_data = file_get_contents($session_file);
    
    //with a regex mine out the username contained within the session data
    preg_match('/USERNAME.*?"(.*?)";/', $session_data, $matches);

   //get the matched pattern out of the first grouping of the pattern
    $session_user = $matches[1];

   //if the found value is not empty then create the key for the array and/or increment the user count (users can be logged in multiple times)
    if ($session_user) $users[$session_user]++;
  }

//now that we have done the heavy lifting proceed to display the result with a simple foreach iteration over the users array that we have populated...

?>

<H1>Active Portal User Sessions</H1>

<UL>

<?php foreach($users as $username=>$count): ?>
<LI><?= $username ?>(<?= $count ?>)</LI>
<?php endforeach; ?>

</UL>

If You install this php code on your Portal Server you would get the following output.

This successfully displays all users currently logged into the Portal server.

As you can see, inspecting php sessions is a very useful technique for finding Xinet Portal user information, and using this technique it is possible to provide enhanced user tracking functionality.

While I try not to focus on one particular subject or promote a specific item in my blogs, I feel compelled to dedicate this blog to the new and rich features made available in the version 7 release of the Pageflex software. This release is full of a great variety of improvements and completely new features that it just screams "blog me!".

If you ask a Pageflex representative what's new in the version 7 release, they might form their answer around the new Adobe InDesign integration. There is now available a Pageflex plug-in to InDesign CS4 that offers pallets similar to what you have seen in PF Studio. This Studio ID plug-in alone moves InDesign closer to Variable Data more than anything in the past. With this plug-in, you can output directly from InDesign to PostScript, PDF, PPML, or JPEG files. The plug-in is available in both Windows and Mac OS formats.

What if you want to take those InDesign files to your Storefront? That, too, is a new feature available in version 7 - Server ID. Implementation of this basically puts an InDesign Server engine under the hood of Storefront as its composition engine - by itself or in addition to the traditional NuDoc engine. Storefront users see no difference in the workflow. They'd be hard pressed to know if the file was from InDesign or Studio - exactly what you want.

Indeed the integration of Pageflex and Adobe products combining to make a unique and powerful solution are worthy of applause, but there is much more in the mainline Pageflex release than that.

Storefront probably inherits the majority of accolade in features obtained in the new release. These features include:
- Ability to drag items in a list up or down (rather than having to click the up/down arrow until you're blue in the face)

- When users need to select an image from a Image Choice, select a datalist, or other action that requires another window, instead of opening a new window, they're now faced with a nifty floating palette

- You now have the ability to remove users, orders, assets, and even deployments in Storefront

- One can now schedule a task to remove Storefront logs (we presume other scheduled tasks may be on the way)

- There are improvements in skinning, specifically in the area of "Inserts" that can be added to more steps than the previous releases

- There are new Pop-up controls in Storefront and Campaign Manager

- Another great feature is the ability to schedule when a Campaign can be mailed in Campaign Manager

- V7 offers a change in the way Pageflex generates PDF files - still using Adobe libraries, but with more Adobe Distiller-like capabilities

- If you're a Storefront administrator like myself and dislike using Internet Explorer, V7 will now let you use Firefox and Safari for these tasks. Chrome users, stand-by

- Several API, Document Actions, programming features, and extensions have been added or improved upon

Of course there are more features and enhancements but the above list would hopefully make you salivate to know more. It's always encouraging to see vendors address customer and client needs and I believe Pageflex has made another step in the right direction with this release.

Like nearly every other industry, the Print and Marketing Services community is not immune to the economic woes the world is facing. As I type, the Boston Globe is struggling to repel Bankruptcy. The Rocky Mountain News had to call it quits just a few weeks ago. Some of the biggest print shops around have gone extinct. I doubt any of this is news to you and I'm certain you're tired of hearing and reading about it.

Despite this downturn, it remains a bittersweet time for those looking to survive. Companies are using innovative technology to help battle the inevitable. I especially see this in the Variable Data, Personalized Publishing, Dynamic Page Publishing, Web-To-Print world! Targeted marketing, while not a new term, is certainly one that is prevalent in order that printers and marketers aren't sending out large quantities of print to just anybody, but rather to the audience that the message is appropriate for. If John Doe doesn't have a cat, I don't want to be sending him coupons for cat food - thus wasting his time as well as precious resources. But if John Doe does like dogs, sending him a coupon for dog food is more likely to gain his attention.

VDP has been near and dear to me for over 10 years and it's an exciting time to see company's swarm to the technology. For myself, it's a busy era not only because NAPC offers the Pageflex product line, but also because we have so many initiatives surrounding it.

Pageflex themselves are looking to release version 7 of their powerful software that will allow users to use Adobe InDesign to create documents that can be posted on Storefront. One would also be able to utilize the InDesign server to serve up these templates. Version seven will offer other features and enhancements that help maintain Pageflexs' best-in-breed status.

NAPC is starting to implement the Pageflex-to-Xinet Connector at beta sites. The Connector allows Storefront users the ability to retrieve a live asset from the Xinet Digital Asset Management system and place it right in the template they are customizing.

Campaign Manager is growing in popularity as well. The ability to send out email and print campaigns and track them is paramount to marketing agencies and printers alike. Yet another service they can offer their clients.

We have other initiatives - too many to mention - that assure we are not sitting still while the economy tries to recover but instead, working to make the technology help us through these times.

Incidentally, if you're interested to see what the Pageflex and Connector products can do, I invite you to take a look at a video we posted recently (yet another initiative) - go to http://www.napc.com/pageflex.php# and click in the lower-right part of the page - and then contact NAPC to get more details.

It's a bittersweet time!

As most would have expected, the attendance at the OnDemand show in Philadelphia was down from previous years. One report was that "registrations" were up 18% from last year, but that is not reflected in the actual attendees. Still, there a very steady stream of people running through the show.

Front and center for NAPC, of course, was our reception for the Pageflex-to-Xinet Connector which went well. Many vendors and customers alike, attended the event. I think there was about 25 attendees and certainly a lot of interest in the product. The product was wall represented in the media as well (What They Think, Seybold, and many others). The wait is finally over for those looking to connect to Xinet DAM systems from Storefront. I was approached by several folks to get more information on this.

Pageflex was showcasing their Adobe InDesign Studio plug-in which is wrapped up in their anticpated version 7 release of Pageflex software. There were a couple perspectives on this depending on exactly what it is you're looking for so clearly there is a lot of development decisions still to be made. The InDesign Studio plug-in shows up as a palate in InDesign 4 which offers the familiar PF Studio functions (variables, job setups, etc.). You can then package this InDesign job and deploy it on Storefront just as you would a Studio job. The unclear portion was where InDesign Server would come into play. The plug-in will allow for Mac users to work with Pageflex but realize that if Storefront is the posting portal, fonts may still have to be dealt with. Still, it made great strides towards what customers are looking for.

Pageflex was also showing their charting plug-in. This is a pretty feature rich product put out by their services group and addresses needs for dynamic charting in the Pagflex world. Kudo's to Pageflex for taking home another "Best in Show" award for the Storefront 7 product.

Of course there were many other web-to-print offerings including XMPie's uStore, RedTie, OPS, and others. UK company RedTie was pretty aggressive with their product but the product is limited to web-to-print - no email, purls, or campaign managing.

Online Print Solutions (australia company) had a steady stream of folks running through their booth. Their solution is well structured but I believe that's also reflected in the high price.

I overheard two separate conversations that Printable was going under. Who knows if that was a competitor trying to start a bad rumor or what the truth was. I think they would be quickly snatched up by someone else (XMPie/Xerox, etc.).

I sat in on a session at EFI for their new Command Workstation release. Their past releases have concentrated around VDP but this version, not so much.

I attended a session titled "What to do when your W2P application grows up: Using CMS & DAM to manage complex assets" presented by Jeffrey Stewart of Trekk Cross-media. This session was at the end of the day and to get an idea of how thinning the crowd was, there were nine (9) people in attendance to this session - four of which looked to be Trekk employees. I don't think it was a bad session - just people leaving town! Regardless, the session was well done and Jeff brought up NAPC's Connector announcement and commended NAPC on the efforts. It's this type of product that he believes people need to solidify their deployments. Jeff talked about how the integration with CMS and DAM systems is crucial for a variety of reason including versioning of assets, archiving, back-up, organization, and more. He showed some samples of the work that they did including some for a casino, a financial institution, a pharmacutial company, Adobe, and a retail sign company. They used to work with Pageflex but concentrate mainly with XMPie now. I talked to him after the presentation and he said he drifted away from Pageflex because Trekk needed features that were only available in InDesign.

The final day of the show pretty much represents a ghost-town. Typical end-of-show with sparse attendance and people snatching up the freebies and slick posters.