SrushtiSoft

Browsso - All new way to browse blocked websites

2010-10-23T18:52:00.000+05:30

Website link: www.srushti-soft.com/browsso/home.html

We are happy to announce about our new tool "Browsso". It is safe, secure and free email based internet browsing utility.

How it works?

Use our utility to prepare web browsing request
Send an email to the address as given by our utility
Wait for a minute.
You receive reply email from us with the web site content you requested for.

Whats happening in the background?

For every 30 seconds, Our browsso server service (currently hosted on a home computer :) keep listening to the email account you are posting requests.
As soon as your email is arrived, Browsso server service reads it, performs required operation (for example getting a HTML page) and reply it to your email ID with HTML content.
Any text or HTML content will be sent you as email body/matter. Downloads will be enclosed as an attachment.
You can as well check our twitter account (www.twitter.com/browsso) to know Browsso server service activities.

User Review on QQ

2010-08-30T00:11:00.000+05:30

A user expressed his views about Quick Quest and gave rating as 4 out of 5. Here it is:

http://download.cnet.com/Quick-Quest-Limited-Edition/3000-2051_4-562493.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody#rateit

IE6 and Quick Quest Pages

2010-08-19T22:53:00.000+05:30

Some visitors reported to me that Quick Quest pages look displeasing in Internet Explorer 6.0 browser. When I review last one month web activity report of SrushtiSoft, it was pretty clear that QQ pages are not looking good for 22% of our visitors.

SrushtiSoft visitors browser share report

First of all, sorry for the inconvenience. We knew that our pages cannot render good on IE6 and we wanted users to migrate newer version of their browser. Now, looking at the browser share we had to revisit our decision. We fine-tuned Quick Quest pages and now they should be viewed propely.

However few Quick Quest pages are designed with latest graphic image standards and unfortunately old browsers cannot process them effectively. The new Quick Quest pages are best viewed in IE7 and higher, Firefox 3.0 and higher. As we update other sections of SrushtiSoft with new web pages, we will be pushing out old(er) browsers support. We encourage you to upgrade to modern version of your favorite browser and not only view our product pages neatly; enrich your web browsing experience as well.

We made sure to keep our pages simple and more informative. Still, if you are facing any problems in viewing, please feel free to comment here and we will consider it with highest priority.

Thanks for your co-operation!

Website Name Change, Search Engines and Quick Quest

2010-08-09T14:54:00.000+05:30

Hello, In this post, I would like to share 3 major updates with you and here they goes.

Change in Website Name
SrushtiSoft.com is now Srushti-Soft.com. However you should be able to access the new domain even if you enter old URL. Thanks to domain transfer setup. One thing to note that domain name in email IDs are changed to 'Srushti-Soft.com'.

Search Engines Rank for 'Quick Quest'
If you use search keywords “question paper generation software” on Google, Bing and Ask, they rank ‘Quick Quest’ at number 1 position. Whereas Yahoo puts at 10th. I am also trying search engines to suggest Quick Quest with high recommendation for other question paper related popular search keywords (Thanks to Anil, Vishwa and Priya for suggesting some on FB).

Redesigned 'Quick Quest' Product Pages
Quick Quest product pages are now with brand new look. They are now more informative with user-friendly URLs (means you just have to type 'srushti-soft.com/quickquest/story' to see success stories section) and hoping to be search engine friendly as well. When I was thinking of revamping Quick Quest product pages, from technology stand point, I wanted to use only HTML (no Javascript, flash..etc). I first thought of outsourcing this work and contacted some good web designing freelancers and companies. Their cost estimates overshoot my allotted budget. Then decided to design my own and get paid myself :) The web pages may not be fully compatible with IE6 and before, versions before Firefox 3.

So, finally, the outcome is hosted here: http://srushti-soft.com/quickquest and hoping for more and more visitors and customers for Quick Quest.

Thank you!

3D2F.com Editors Review Quick Quest

2010-06-17T20:58:00.000+05:30

3d2f.com editors called Quick Quest as "the best among the like" software. Here is the full story:
http://3d2f.com/smartreviews/1-351-quick-quest-a-powerful-educator-s-tool-for-generating-question-papers-read.shtml

Quick Quest 2.0 is set to release

2010-03-11T04:55:00.000+05:30

'Quick Quest 2.0' is ready to release for its paid customers. The new QQ is having performance improvements over questions and answers management and few bug fixes. Below is the quick list of updates

Change Log

- The screens are more responsive (multithread) and shows proper message if any task taking longer processing time.

- The installer is smart enough to instruct users with suitable caution notes and company name is attached in all the screens (all footer line of installer screens will have 'SrushtiSoft' name) to ensure customers have got genuine product setup copy.

- The application updater is now using high responsive internal components for effective utilization of internet bandwidth to download application updates from SrushtiSoft server.

- User activity tracking and maintenance section is added (go to Admin Tools->User Accounts and click "Show All users activity" button).

- Few defect fixes reported by our customers are included.

'Unable to cast object....' error during question paper generation.
Branch rename option is not rolling back if modify option is canceled by pressing 'Esc' key.
Spell checker does not work properly if operating system language setting is other than US English (en-us)

New version will be made available soon. An update email with download link will be send to our new and existing customers.

Existing promotional customers get this new version of 'Quick Quest' completely FREE!

SrushtiSoft thank all its customers for their interest and support.

New Home Page - An attempt to move away from treditional web design

2010-02-07T22:18:00.000+05:30

www.SrushtiSoft.com is now showcasing with new home page which is way far from traditional website design. The new page is with bigger words and it is intuitive. For simple animation, we used Microsoft's latest and growing technology 'Silverlight'. This is just a beginning, we are planning to roll-out more rich user interactive web site in future. So keep visiting us and let us know what you think at team@srushtisoft.com.

Thanks!

SrushtiSoft Open Source: AppUpdater 2.0

2009-11-29T00:09:00.000+05:30

Its been observed that there were quite less Application Updater components available for DotNet developer community (perhaps, popularly only two such components, Microsoft Updater Application Block and WindowsClient.net component). so we worked-out little extra and open sourced our in-house AppUpdater component on codeplex.

http://appupdater.codeplex.com/

Why should you consider to use SrushtiSoft's AppUpdater 2.0? (No, we are not competing with anyone, we are just excited to highlight AppUpdater features here.. :)

- Configuration driven: That means it does not require to study its complete architecture and write lot many lines code to integrate with your application. You just have to understand AppUpdater's 2 configuraton files. That's it!

- User Orientation: Download your update files from online in asynchronous mode along with advertising your web site pages on updater window.

- Integration: You can tweak AppUpdater demo modules and quickly-easily integrate with your dotnet desktop application.

- Extensible: Write custom Pre and Post update actions in your favorite dotnet language and publish, AppUpdater will run it on client machine software update is taking place.

- Simple: Yes, we follow 'Keep It Simple and Stupid (KISS)' programming approach.

We are keen to know what do you think. So download AppUpdater 2.0 and let us know your thoughts.

QQ OCR Feature - Extract Text from Scanned Images

2009-05-15T19:50:00.000+05:30

If you have text content scanned as TIF image, Quick Quest can read it through its OCR feature integrated with question entry window. This post walk you through on how to accomplish this.

Go to question entry window

Look for an OCR button in the location shown below and click it.

OCR window will come up

Click Browse button and select the file from which you want to extract the content

Once the image is loaded, hit “Extract Text” and you are done!

You can edit extracted text if wish and finally click “Export Scanned Data” to get scanned content on Quest entry area.

Question Paper Compose and Generation

2009-03-07T23:20:00.000+05:30

The Quick Quest window has several important yet simple to use features and this post try to highlight those in brief. You are always encouraged to reach us on our support email ID: quickquest at srushtisoft dot com to avail more help and assistance.

Generate Question Paper
Step 1: Select a subject for which you want to create a questions paper by properly choosing Faculty, Branch and Course from the drop down boxes.
Step 2: Chose one pattern from “Question Paper Pattern” list.
Step 3: Click “Generate” green button to create a question paper.
If you are able to see question IDs populated in the chart located next to the green “Generate” button, that means a new questions paper is generated and ready to secure or publish!
If Quick Quest Engine encounters any error while generating questions paper, it will show you a clear error message stating what went wrong. Please read it carefully to fix it.

Compare with Old Question Paper.
The drop down box labeled as “Compare Old Paper Dated”, lists out all previously generated and saved question papers for a selected subject. Otherwise the drop down box will be empty.
Choose a paper from Old papers list. You will see set of question numbers populated right hand side of the new questions chart and repeated question are marked with red background color.
The old papers drop down list displays previously conducted exam dates. Choosing a date entry from “Compare Old papers date” list will populate question IDs used in the questions paper distributed in the exam halls.

Create Question Paper
The “Create” button generates questions paper with the format designed in Pattern Editor and displays it. The display window allows you to apply font, size, print previewing and other formatting as per your requirement.
You can also edit the bare question paper in your favorite word processing software like MS Word. To do that, copy (CTRL+A and CTRL+C) the bare question paper, open your favorite word processing software and paste the content in a new document. Once you finish doing all formatting your word processing software, copy the whole content and paste back to Quick Quest question paper window and press OK.

Protect Question Paper
When you are done with questions paper formatting, you can now lock the paper to avoid questions paper leak.
Check “Protect Question paper till date” and press “Save”.
Now, only admin user can only able to view the question paper.

QQ: University Edition Dismissed!

2008-10-11T12:11:00.000+05:30

The whole lot of good stuff from University Edition is now integrated in Professional Edition hence development on University Edition is discontinued. The initial idea of extending Professional Edition code base to support complicated functionality and offering them as University Edition- is now set to fall back. With this recent decision, online implementation of question bank management feature is dropped. Quick Quest is a networked in-house application hosted on LAN environment in Education Institute that conduct any type of exams. Professional Edition is now with all best feature refinements imported from University Edition code base, affordable in terms of cost, rich in features set, ease in deployment and secure in computing. Quick Quest is getting ready for production release and I will be working on its commercial availability.

Quick Quest Professional Edition is now available under quick purchase scheme with promotional offer pricing $150 or Rs.6500

Quick Quest: Question Paper Pattern Setting

2008-08-27T08:48:00.001+05:30

The question paper pattern editor in Quick Quest helps to create any type of pattern. This generic editor works with a simple thought process and we will take a crack on it in this post.

If we look at any question paper with ‘layout’ perspective, we see “repetition of 2 units” (1) Heading (2) Question. In below picture you can see these units are highlighted with colored boxes. The Red box indicates “Heading” and the Blue box indicates “Question”.

With this thought we can create series of Heading and Question units in Quick Quest Pattern Editor like this:

Isn't it simple? :)
If you have any queries, feel free to post in comments section of this post.

Quick Quest Free Edition is Out!!

2008-08-21T20:36:00.000+05:30

Finally, SrushtiSoft made Quick Quest Free Edition available for public download. We are calling this version of Quick Quest as 'Limited Edition'. Visit www.SrushtiSoft.com to know more and get your free copy right away!

Quick Quest Home Page

QQ: Any Luck for Single Users?

2008-08-20T17:25:00.000+05:30

Quick Quest was planned to release in 3 paid versions.

Compact Edition – Supports Single desktop/laptop users.
Professional Edition – LAN setup for few hundred users.
Enterprise Edition – Unlimited users and WAN Setup.

SrushtiSoft is re-thinking on commercial availability model of Quick Quest. Each edition may undergo considerable changes with the intent of reasonable reach to Educator's community. Some devising of plans on Quick Quest “Free” edition is going on. The free edition may offer good to go usable features by disabling high end functionality. "Free Edition" thought has to pass through some considerations to finalize. Individuals who feel Quick Quest is pressing more on their money pocket, they can wait for some more days, who knows...they might get lucky ;)

Quick Quest Harmony

2008-08-12T01:03:00.000+05:30

In few scenarios Quick Quest is using third party utilities (like Microsoft Equation Editor for equation entry and Baraha for Indian language support). Coming up with in-house components and integrating them with Quick Quest has its own challenges, specially the development time. However what makes sense is reusing existing good utilities (This is what we see most of the time Software Architecture emphasizing more). Quick Quest is religiously following it. We also see good points from Quick Quest user experience perspective.

Best Quality: The utilities we chose are best in their area.

No Training: Many people are aware or already using these utilities hence the need for special training is slim to none.

Better Online and Offline Help: You will find good help integrated with these utilities, hosted on their web sites and there are online user communities who can assist you when you are facing some problem.

You Are Benefited: Because these are very well tested and established utilities, you see them always working right.

Multilingual Quick Quest Support

2008-08-10T15:58:00.001+05:30

Quick Quest Question and Answer entry boxes can be used to enter multilingual questions and answers. Here are the details on how to do it.

Quick Quest take help of Free Indian Language Software named “Baraha” which can be downloaded from here.

When you install Baraha, look for its “Baraha Direct” option which you can easily find it in windows start->programs->Baraha menu. If you spend few minutes with Baraha you will easily understand on how to use its “Baraha Direct” feature.

- Once you start feeling comfortable with "Baraha Direct", switch back to Quick Quest.
- Go to question entry screen. Enable Baraha Direct option to your required language.
- In question entry box, initially type something, select the text, right click and set the font which supports your desired language and start typing. From that point onwards you should see Indian language appearing.
- By toggling Baraha Direct ON/OFF, you can combine multiple languages in one question entry as shown below.

The demo version of course allows you to try this out but it may crash when you attempt to save it. This behavior is intentionally left unhandled only in demo version.

Quick Quest and Windows

2008-08-10T11:32:00.001+05:30

Quick Quest always wants its user ‘not to think hard’ to understand any of its functionality. Hence Quick Quest carry-forwards many aspects of Microsoft Windows user interface standards. Let’s have sneak peak at few.

1. Quick Quest User Desktop: You have Quick Quest - “Quick Start” button which is similar to your Start Button in Windows and the Quick Start Menu which imitates Windows Start Menu. (Yes, placing [top-left-corner] of Quick Quest Start button is inspired from Ubuntu Linux)

2. Customize your desktop: Make your Quick Quest Desktop more attractive by setting your favorite background image. The user setting screen offers different background image layouts such as Tile, Zoom, Stretched like what you see in Windows while setting wallpaper.

3. Minimize All at Once: By clicking minimize button of Quick Quest Desktop, you can minimize all its child windows including Quick Quest Desktop to windows Task bar.

4. Sort Lists as you do in Windows Explorer: Click on List column header and the list gets sorted out on column content.

5. Neat Icons: A picture tells thousand words in shortest time so the screen header icons in Quick Quest.

6. Users and Levels: Different user types and functionality access rights.

7. Windows Explorer = Quick Quest Explorer: Windows Explorer is frequently used feature because of its wide accessibility to our files. Quick Quest Explorer is also with the same intent; any master setup entities can be quickly accessed and managed through this.

8. Quick Links: Windows XP features quick links very much similar to URL links on web pages. Quick Quest has such links on its master setup screens.

Note: screen shots demonstrated here are captured from Beta version of Quick Quest; final release may have slight changes.

Comparisons listed here are all about "look and feel". Functionally Windows and Quick Quest perform their own designated tasks which are entirely different from each other. What I tried achieving here is Quick Quest user should not feel anything new or different from his operating system as a result it make him feel comfortable using Quick Quest.

Quick Quest - Equation and Symbols Support

2008-08-08T09:09:00.000+05:30

Quick Quest Compact Edition Beta is out for initial evaluation. I am happy that people started using it and coming up with suggestions and queries. What I am hearing more is about Equation Editor Feature. I thought of taking a crack on it in this post.

Quick Quest supports entering Mathematical equations and Science Symbols. If you go to question entry page and in question or answer entry box, if you right click and navigate to “Insert” in pop-up menu, you will see “Equation” option. On your selection of this will insert a template in question or answer entry box, which you have to double click to enable the equation editor. Sometimes even after your double clicks it does nothing and you may feel weird. The reason for this behavior is Microsoft Office with Equation Editor is not installed on your machine.

To enable this feature you are required to install Microsoft Office (any version, 97/2000/XP/2003/2007). Please follow the step by step instructions given by Microsoft to install Equation Editor comes with Microsoft Office Suite.
Once you are done with the equation editor installation, you can now start Quick Quest and it should allow you to enter Equations and symbols.

‘Quick Quest’ takes help of Microsoft Equation Editor Utility and there are couples of reasons for this addiction. I found Microsoft Equation Editor is appealing and very easy to use. Also looking at the MS Office software domination in offices and users expertise, it will be easy for Quick Quest user to enter equations and symbols with no extra training.

And one more thing, through out this post, I assumed you have legal copy of Microsoft Office with you. :)

Quick Quest CE - Coming Soon

2008-07-27T22:25:00.000+05:30

I am excited about Quick Quest: Compact Edition. The preview release of the next version of the Quick Quest is getting ready. www.SrushtiSoft.com is updated with new Quick Quest Ad Page. The next version of Quick Quest will be ‘the generic software for automation of question paper generation processes’. Hence the tag, “Single software for all education institutes in this world!”

What do you think?

2008-07-15T21:55:00.001+05:30

An attempt to gather your opinion about SrushtiSoft.com through a shortest survey setup hosted here. I bet it will not take more than 30 seconds, please help us improving our site.

Quick Quest - The Old and The New

2008-07-13T12:35:00.000+05:30

Nothing is completely decided and I am trying out some new UI design for Quick Quest Compact Edition. I thought of posting old (Screen Shot 1) and new (Screen Shot 2) Quick Quest screens which gives you glimpse of application windows as well as the comparison.

Below images are demonstrating same functional screens in Quick Quest (old & new) and you can see the effort towards making user experience better in new edition. In old Quick Quest, Question paper pattern creation screens required some training and I believe in the new edition, need for training is little reduced.

Your comments and thoughts are very much valuable and appreciated if you get little time to express those here.

Screen Shot 1 (Old Quick Quest)

Screen Shot 2 (New Quick Quest)

Quick Quest CE: An Update

2008-07-04T14:34:00.000+05:30

As per the previous post on Quick Quest, by this time Quick Quest – Compact Edition should have been released. I was driven by my vision of SrushtiSoft products for not to strictly follow up on the planned dates (at least for now). During the revisit of Quick Quest, I realized that many aspects need fresh thoughts and entirely a new approach to deal Quick Quest users need. I self initiated Quick Quest – Compact Edition assignment with a thought of ‘as is’ migration of Visual Basic 6.0 code base to Visual Basic.Net taking the help of migration wizard offered by Microsoft Dot Net IDE. I am sure that this could have worked quickly and would not have introduced any delays in the release of Quick Quest – Compact Edition. However my emphasis is more on delivering more stable and scalable product and never mind if I miss planned schedules. As a result, I am now having a brand new Quick Quest built from scratch which is highly scalable, stable and more user friendly than before.

Quick Quest can be broadly viewed through 3 functional parts.
1. Institution/Study setup
2. Question Bank creation and management
3. Question Paper Generation.

Currently I have finished 1 and 2 function areas. Functional part 3 is under construction. Quick Quest – Professional was built when I was undergoing my graduation and I had not taken much care on the architecture front. I am hoping new version has many neat things are in place.

Extending Prayog 2007

2007-12-01T13:11:00.000+05:30

Our new customer of Prayog is expecting enhancements in reporting. Currently Prayog generates 'black and white' output; making it colorful is the requested improvement. As per our new customer feedback, we understand that coloring some of the report lines help getting doctor’s attention and achieve ‘non-verbal’ communication. We have seen instance where colors talk’s more than 'good looking' aspects and Prayog is going to use that factor effectively in its next enhancement release.
The team Prayog is now working on providing options for user to create colored reports. Our prototype output was quite impressive and we will soon release the updated version of Prayog.

Quick Quest - Compact Edition

2007-11-04T13:48:00.000+05:30

If you check at SrushtiSoft, We have not provided trial/evaluation version of QuickQuest for download due to its complicated network installation process which is out of our scope to include in setup package since it requires little geeky manual intervention. We are now working on “Compact Edition” which can easily run on a single computer/laptop for a single user.

We see quite good opportunities for Compact Edition as this best suites personal user who can use this for their kid’s studies, private institutes and schools. The Compact Edition will be built using Microsoft’s latest Dot Net technology.

The new polished Compact Edition will be out by May 2008.

Srushti.Observer

2007-10-18T23:51:00.001+05:30

In Flexo, open Expense Manager, double click on existing expense entry from the list, on item edit screen, click the button right next to the Categories drop down control, choose Categories Manager from the pop-up menu and modify category name in resulting pop up window. As soon as you hit save on category update window, you notice new name getting reflected in all screens (Expense Entry screen and all corresponding entries in Expense Manager Screen). This instant update gives visual response to the user that his change has taken place successfully. The hidden performer behind this quick update is Srushti’s component named “Observer”. If you open Flexo directory and scan DLL files with prudence, you will find Srushti.Observer.dll which does this job. Conceptually, this component promptly follows “Publisher-Subscriber Design pattern” to work systematically. The form which receives update information from user hands it over to Srushti.Observer component and this propagates information to other currently opened forms/windows. We are trying to visualize big picture through this implementation. One day, Srushti’s all products will start communicating each other and they may use “Publisher-Subscriber” design for their effective information exchange. Though this idea is only in conceptual stage, our everyday effort is having passion to reach this goal one day.

Quick Quest Presentation Hosted Online

2007-10-16T22:26:00.000+05:30

Those who don't have MS Power Point installed on their machine and still wish to view Quick Quest Power Point presentation, they can try it here: Quick Quest Presentation

Welcome, Dear Visitor

2007-10-15T07:53:00.001+05:30

Now, if you visit www.SrushtiSoft.com, you will see a new “green button” on the products main page with the caption “Visiting for the first time?” which gets you to the newly built web page.
After posting few (in fact 2) articles on CodeProject, my web site hit rate has increased a lot. That pushed me to create a new page which briefly and effectively talks on our goals. I just thought of having a corroborative conversation and make an attempt to induce “Srushti” worm in visitor's thoughts, hoping that one day they may ping us and expect some sort of soft solution(s). Its not a strategy to attract my site visitors, In fact I am trying to provoke their thoughts and match that with our passion.

Srushti.Framework

2007-10-15T07:51:00.000+05:30

As soon as I started feeling comfortable with dot net technology my next move was to coming up with range of small utilities that should help and accelerate our daily activities. I just started working towards coming up with generic framework which should be an abstraction to the technical challenges like connecting to multiple database, logging and caching. I built one code generator tool too, which will generate all basic workable classes adhering to the standards laid out in my framework. Soon after finishing the ground work, I put these into production and Flexo came out of it.

Though I was aware of Microsoft Enterprise Library (EL), I dared to workout on my own framework. Reasons were, I wanted to put theory learnt into code and evaluate myself that how good I am in creating generic, scalable and reliable components. After finishing part of Framework, I downloaded Enterprise Library and did a comparision. There were many differences (naturally) and mine required little more maturity (as expected :).

During the construction cycle of framework, I realized many concepts, discovered many possibilities and it helped me to visualize objects and there collaboration rather simply the dot net code. I was able to clearly see design patterns coming to life and sitting in real time scenarios. I admit, I am in very initial stage and have long way to go.

Skin Design

2007-10-15T07:49:00.000+05:30

Flexo is a personal accounting package. Since it is in very initial stage, it tracks only your expenses and generates variety of reports on it. (Recently I included income tracking module which is in alpha stage) In coming years Flexo will extend and mechanize most of money management activities under few button clicks. In parallel to cool features, creating a good and ease of user interface is also a head scratching work. It’s an art too. I don’t want to set more expectation saying that Flexo has very good interface but I feel it has got what it was expected to have.

When you download and check all screens in Flexo, one thing you will sure notice, Consistency. Just open any UI guidelines book, this will be a first statement and there is no way to skip this rule in my software too.

If we think traditionally, the design approach for consistent UI for all forms could be like these,

Create header-footer ActiveX/Custom/User control and place it on all forms or create a static class which has a drawing method to decorate runtime loading forms and thinking further to this, maintain one XML configuration file which will hold all coloring, fonts and size details from which our drawing method gets inspired and brushes it on all forms.

In dot net, we have one cool feature - Visual Inheritance, which allows us to create a master form and inherit this to all child forms. Whatever UI changes you make on a master form will affect all its children. Re-using the idea of above mentioned XML configuration file, use dot net App.config and define all fancy information in it. Associate values from app.config file to master form’s properties popularly known as setting dynamic properties and we are done! Whenever I want to change any color of my Flexo forms I will just update flexo.exe.config file and I don’t have to compile my application to reflect new changes.