PAINTINGS BY - Jim Garner- its amazing!!!!!!

Beautiful Rangolis

Timely help

Written By M. Vanitha Nagarajan - Reader, Woman's Era.

I had gone on LTC to Delhi with my husband and 2 kids aged 9 and 4. Keeping Delhi as the base, we decided to visit places like Agra, Jaipur and Haridwar. We then planned the dates of travel and booked the tickets accordingly. Our last destination was Jaipur. The next day, after our return from Jaipur, we were to take the train to Chennai.

The whole journey went off smoothly as planned. We loved the Pink city very much and with the Hawa Mahal and Jal Mahal still green in our memory, we reached Jaipur station. To our dismay, we could not find our names in any of the reservation lists.

When we checked the tickets, we found they were booked for the next day, the day we were to catch the train to Chennai. The train was to leave in an hour's time. In panic we ran helter-skelter searching for the ticket examiner.

As I was the only one with a smattering of Hindi, my husband stood helpless by me while I found the assistant station master in his office and begged him for help.

He immediately came out of his office and helped us secure a seating accommodation in the unreserved compartment. He asked us to hand over the tickets booked for the next day to him with our Chennai address.

We blindly followed his instructions, paid him for the tickets issued, handed over the tickets booked for having the next day and boarded the train just in time. Thanking our stars for having received timely help, we reached Delhi and left for Chennai the next day as planned.

Thereafter we completely forgot about the refund of the cost of fare. Imagine our surprise, when we received a money order from that assistant station master for the refund money less the money order commission.

In these days of corruption, such honest officers do exist. I only wish that our country had more officers like him. In my ordeal, I did not even notice his name but his deed is etched in my memory forever.

Dear Friends............Your tiny help can change one child’s life.

Be a sponsor to a child and change her/his life and serve up to your Mother Nation (How much we are spending per month unnecessarily… just think over it.).

World Vision which is a humanitarian organization serves all people apart from country, religion, caste, race, ethnicity and gender.

You can provide your help as Dresses, Books, one day nutritious food, toys etc… and just spend your time at least 2 hrs per month with them… you will see god in their face.

And you can get Tax benefits which you are spending for those children.

Then... you can meet the child for whom you are sponsoring and can know your money is spending for really those children and really is spending in proper way.

You can meet and give your helping hand to them at,
World Vision, N0:16, VOC Main Road, Kodambakkam, Chennai-600 024.
Telephone: 044-24807070, 42287070.

The Beauty of Death - by Khalil Gibran

Part One - The Calling

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and
Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;
Light the candel and burn the incense around my bed, and
Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;
Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume
, And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead.

Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;
Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;
Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for It's magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.

Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers
Raise their crowns to greet the dawn.
Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light
Between my bed and the infinite;
Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of Her white wings.

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.
Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;
Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;
Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,
And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

Part Two - The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
Hiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight
And red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams Are scattered,
and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity
In exact harmony with the spirit's desires.
I am cloaked in full whiteness;
I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Part Three - The Remains

Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me
With leaves of jasmine and lilies;
Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest
Upon pillows of orange blossoms.

Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;
Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;
Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your
Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.
Disturb not the air's tranquility with chanting and requiems,
But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;

Mourn me not with apparel of black,
But dress in color and rejoice with me;
Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts;
close Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.

Place me upon clusters of leaves and
Carry my upon your friendly shoulders and
Walk slowly to the deserted forest.
Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber
Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.

Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets
And poppies grow not in the other's shadow;
Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not
Carry my bones to the open valley;
Let my grace be wide, so that the twilight shadows Will come and sit by me.

Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my Mother Earth;
and place me with care upon my mother's breast.
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed
With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and
when they Grow above me, and thrive
on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space;

And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace;
And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer.
Leave me then, friends - leave me and depart on mute feet,
As the silence walks in the deserted valley;
Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly,
as the almond And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan's breeze.

Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there
That which Death cannot remove from you and me.
Leave with place, for what you see here is far away in meaning
From the earthly world. Leave me.

Dressing Tips

Choose only mild color dresses (Except you are very very fair), it will show your complexion brighter.

If you have fatty body, choose only vertical lined dresses (Churithars, t-shirts, saris… whatever it may be.) and vis versa.

Take care to your dress stitching. Very loose stitching will give you the appearance as patient and very tight fitting will eat your respect by others.

Don’t imitate others … because…. which give good looking to one, same will give funny look to another one, depends upon your body nature choose your own.

Normally choose black or light sandal color foot wears which will be appropriate to all dresses. Is proper, Rose color foot wears to green color dress? I have seen many girls in Chennai in this stylish fashion. :)

If you are a thin and fair, all color ranges and color shades look good on you. Sleeveless, deep cuts and strapped blouses make you look dazzling.

Rare and Beautiful shots

நாமிருவரும் சேர்ந்து எடுத்த புகைப்படங்களில்
அமர்ந்து இருப்பேன் நான்.
அடக்கமாக எனக்கு பின்னால்
நின்று கொண்டு இருப்பாய் நீ .

உன் இனத்து கற்புக்கு அரசிகளை சொல்லி
உன்னை மிரட்டுவேன் நான்.
என் இனத்து அயோக்கியர்களின் பட்டியல் தெரிந்தும்
அமைதியாய் இருப்பாய் நீ.

நீ எனக்கு இருப்பதை பிறர் கேட்டால் ஒழிய
சொல்லிகொள்வதில்லை நான்.
நான் உனக்கு இருப்பதை ஆதாரங்கள் அணிந்து
பறை சற்றியாக வேண்டும் நீ.

எனக்கு பிறகு என் நினைவுகளோடு
வாழ வைகிறார்கள் உன்னை.
உனக்கு பிறகு உன் தங்கையோடு
வாழ வைகிறார்கள் என்னை.

நானும் நீயும் - Jayabashkaran.

Creating Crystal Reports

You can create a Crystal Report by using three methods:
1. Manually i.e. from a blank document
2. Using Standard Report Expert
3. From an existing report

Creating Crystal Reports Manually.
We would use the following steps to implement Crystal Reports using the Pull Model:

1. Create the .rpt file (from scratch) and set the necessary database connections using the Crystal Report Designer interface.

2. Place a CrystalReportViewer control from the toolbox on the .aspx page and set its properties to point to the .rpt file that we created in the previous step.

3. Call the databind method from your code behind page.

I. Steps to create the report i.e. the .rpt file
1) Add a new Crystal Report to the web form by right clicking on the "Solution Explorer", selecting "Add" --> "Add New Item" --> "Crystal Report".

2) On the "Crystal Report Gallery" pop up, select the "As a Blank Report" radio button and click "ok".

3) This should open up the Report File in the Crystal Report Designer.

4) Right click on the "Details Section" of the report, and select "Database" -> "Add/Remove Database".

5) In the "Database Expert" pop up window, expand the "OLE DB (ADO)" option by clicking the "+" sign, which should bring up another "OLE DB (ADO)" pop up.

6) In the "OLE DB (ADO)" pop up, Select "Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server" and click Next.

7) Specify the connection information.

8) Click "Next" and then click "Finish"

9) Now you should be able to see the Database Expert showing the table that have been selected

10) Expand the "Pubs" database, expand the "Tables", select the "Stores" table and click on ">" to include it into the "Selected Tables" section.

Note: If you add more than one table in the database Expert and the added tables have matching fields, when you click the OK button after adding the tables, the links between the added tables is displayed under the Links tab. You can remove the link by clicking the Clear Links button.

11) Now the Field Explorer should show you the selected table and its fields under the "Database Fields" section, in the left window.

12) Drag and drop the required fields into the "Details" section of the report. The field names would automatically appear in the "Page Header" section of the report. If you want to modify the header text then right click on the text of the "Page Header" section, select "Edit Text Object" option and edit it.

13) Save it .

II. Creating a Crystal Report Viewer Control
1) Drag and drop the "Crystal Report Viewer>" from the web forms tool box on to the .aspx page

2) Open the properties window for the Crystal Report Viewer control.

3) Click on the [...] next to the "Data Binding" Property and bring up the data binding pop-up window

4) Select "Report Source".

5) Select the "Custom Binding Expression" radio button, on the right side bottom of the window and specify the sample .rpt filename and path as shown in the fig.

6) You should be able to see the Crystal Report Viewer showing you a preview of actual report file using some dummy data and this completes the inserting of the Crystal Report Viewer controls and setting its properties.

Note: In the previous example, the CrystalReportViewer control was able to directly load the actual data during design time itself as the report was saved with the data. In this case, it will not display the data during design time as it not saved with the data - instead it will show up with dummy data during design time and will fetch the proper data only at run time.

7) Call the Databind method on the Page Load Event of the Code Behind file (.aspx.vb). Build and run your .aspx page. The output would look like திஸ்.

Using a PUSH model
1. Create a Dataset during design time.

2. Create the .rpt file (from scratch) and make it point to the Dataset that we created in the previous step.

3. Place a CrystalReportViewer control on the .aspx page and set its properties to point to the .rpt file that we created in the previous step.

4. In your code behind page, write the subroutine to make the connections to the database and populate the dataset that we created previously in step one.

5. Call the Databind method from your code behind page.

I. Creating a Dataset during Design Time to Define the Fields of the Reports
1) Right click on "Solution Explorer", select "Add" --> select "Add New Item" --> Select "DataSet"

2) Drag and drop the "Stores" table (within the PUBS database) from the "SQL Server" Item under "Server Explorer".

3) This should create a definition of the "Stores" table within the Dataset

The .xsd file created this way contains only the field definitions without any data in it. It is up to the developer to create the connection to the database, populate the dataset and feed it to the Crystal Report.

II. Creating the .rpt File
4) Create the report file using the steps mentioned previously. The only difference here is that instead of connecting to the Database thru Crystal Report to get to the Table, we would be using our DataSet that we just created.

5) After creating the .rpt file, right click on the "Details" section of the Report file, select "Add/Remove Database"

6) In the "Database Expert" window, expand "Project Data" (instead of "OLE DB" that was selected in the case of the PULL Model), expand "ADO.NET DataSet", "DataSet1", and select the "Stores"table.

7) Include the "Stores" table into the "Selected Tables" section by clicking on ">" and then Click "ok"

8) Follow the remaining steps to create the report layout as mentioned previously in the PULL Model to complete the .rpt Report file creation

III. Creating a CrystalReportViewer Control
9) Follow the steps mentioned previously in the PULL Model to create a Crystal Report Viewer control and set its properties.

Code Behind Page Modifications:

10) Call this subroutine in your page load event:

Sub BindReport()

Dim myConnection As New SqlClient.SqlConnection()

myConnection.ConnectionString = "server= (local)\NetSDK;database=pubs;Trusted_Connection=yes"

Dim MyCommand As New SqlClient.SqlCommand()

MyCommand.Connection = myConnection

MyCommand.CommandText = "Select * from Stores"

MyCommand.CommandType = CommandType.Text

Dim MyDA As New SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter()

MyDA.SelectCommand = MyCommand

Dim myDS As New Dataset1()

Dim oRpt As New CrystalReport1()

oRpt.SetDataSource(myDS)

CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = oRpt

End Sub

Note: In the above code, you would notice that the object oRpt is an instance of the "Strongly Typed" Report file. If we were to use an "UnTyped" Report then we would have to use a ReportDocument object and manually load the report file into it.

Enhancing Crystal Reports
Accessing filtered data through Crystal reports
Perform the following steps for the same.

1. Generate a dataset that contains data according to your selection criteria, say "where (cost>1000)".

2. Create the Crystal Report manually. It would look like this.

3. Right Click Group Name fields in the field Explorer window and select insert Group from the shortcut menu. Select the relevant field name from the first list box .

4. A plus sign is added in front of Group Name Filed in the field explorer window. The Group

Name Field needs to be added to the Group Header section of the Crystal Report. Notice this is done automatically.

5. Right Click the running total field and select new. Fill the required values through > and the drop down list.

6. Since the count of number of categories is to be displayed for the total categories, drag RTotal0 to the footer of the report.

Create a formula
Suppose if the report required some Calculations too. Perform the following steps:

1. Right Click the formula Fields in the field explorer window and select new. Enter any relevant name, say percentage.

2. A formula can be created by using the three panes in the dialog box. The first pane contains all the crystal report fields, the second contains all the functions, such as Avg, Sin, Sum etc and the third contains operators such as arithmetic, conversion and comparison operators.

3. Double click any relevant field name from the forst pane, say there's some field like advance from some CustOrder table. Then expand Arithmetic from the third pane and double click Divide operator.

4. Double click another field name from the first which you want to use as divisor of the first field name already selected say it is CustOrder.Cost.

5. Double Click the Multiply from third pane and the type 100.

6. The formula would appear as {CustOrder.Advance}/{ CustOrder.Cost} * 100.

7. Save the formula and close Formula Editor:@Percentage dialog box.

8. Insert the percentage formula field in the details pane.

9. Host the Crystal report.

Exporting Crystal reports
When using Crystal Reports in a Web Form, the CrystalReportViewer control does not have the export or the print buttons unlike the one in Windows Form. Although, we can achieve export and print functionality through coding. If we export to PDF format, Acrobat can handle the printing for us, as well as saving a copy of the report.

You can opt to export your report file into one of the following formats:
PDF (Portable Document Format)
DOC (MS Word Document)
XLS (MS Excel Spreadsheet)
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language - 3.2 or 4.0 compliant)
RTF (Rich Text Format)

To accomplish this you could place a button on your page to trigger the export functionality.

When using Crystal Reports in ASP.NET in a Web Form, the CrystalReportViewer control does not have the export or the print buttons like the one in Windows Form. We can still achieve some degree of export and print functionality by writing our own code to handle exporting. If we export to PDF format, Acrobat can be used to handle the printing for us and saving a copy of the report.

Exporting a Report File Created using the PULL Model
Here the Crystal Report takes care of connecting to the database and fetching the required records, so you would only have to use the below given code in the Event of the button.

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

Dim myReport As CrystalReport1 = New CrystalReport1()

Dim DiskOpts As CrystalDecisions.Shared.DiskFileDestinationOptions = New CrystalDecisions.Shared.DiskFileDestinationOptions myReport.ExportOptions.ExportDestinationType = CrystalDecisions.[Shared].ExportDestinationType.DiskFile

myReport.ExportOptions.ExportFormatType = CrystalDecisions.[Shared].ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat

DiskOpts.DiskFileName = "c:\Output.pdf"

myReport.ExportOptions.DestinationOptions = DiskOpts

DiskFileDestinationOption object. myReport.Export()

End Sub