Monthly Archives: January 2017

Using FusionCharts in SSRS reports

Microsoft’s SSRS is pretty advanced reporting system with multitude of advanced features. SSRS also has charting capabilities, but it’s somewhat lacking compared to more advanced desktop or web charting suites

On the other hand FusionCharts offers very cool charting package with gazillion of chart types and very cool features. But it uses JavaScript engine and renders charts client-side only!

What if there was a way to marry the two technologies together – to render cool FusionCharts in advanced SSRS repots? Continue reading →

There’s new reflective LCD in town (SMA Q2 vs PTS)

I’ve been a fan of Pebble smartwatch for a very long time, both as a user and developer, but recently, even before announcement of Pebble acquisition by FitBit I got curious – what else’s out there? Two mainstream branches of smartwatches – Android Wear and “The Watch” are of no interest to me – too boring. So I looked into Samsung Gear watches – Tizen platform is very interesting, then it was Vector Watch (which ended up being bought by FitBit as well) and now a new ePaper watch from Chinese company Shenzhen – SMA Q2 (sometimes called SMA Time).

There is no question that despite obvious visual similarities, at this point in time Pebble Time Steel is vastly superior to SMA Time. PTS is on 4th generation firmware which brought many advanced features over the years, PTS has a very popular appstore and high quality developer ecosystem. SMA Time feels like Pebble circa firmware v1.x (probably even less, e.g. it has only 3 slots for watchfaces on the watch) but it seems to have great potential.

I am posting here a few pics comparing PTS with SMA Time. Continue reading →