Reporting Tales - Pentaho Reporting Tips and Tricks from the Author

10 years of Pentaho Reporting / JFreeReport

2012-04-19T18:41:00.001+01:00

Today, 10 years ago I received the e-mail approving the JFreeReport project on Sourceforge. This day also marks my first day as official project leader of the project.

10 years ago, JFreeReport was just starting out. A few weeks before that I added what would later be known as "Simple-XML" format to make it easier to define layouts. In the same year we got PDF export, Windows-Meta-File (WMF) rendering and report functions to calculate values and started gathering a community via the forums at www.object-refinery.com.

JFreeReport was written by David Gilbert. When I needed some printing capabilities for a customer of mine, I selected JFreeReport, as it's code was clear, and it was easy to embed, had little dependencies and was free of weird runtime requirements (like the need for a JDK to 'compile' reports, whatever that means). JFreeReport was 100% in memory with the ability to run in any environment that had a Java runtime environment, regardless how restricted or resource-constrained.

And these days, we uphold that flag. JFreeReport, now Pentaho Reporting, still runs 100% in memory, with no need to swap report data to disk. The core engine is still small, even though the various data-sources can easily add up to 100MB or more, if you include them all.

Thanks to our vibrant community we had a successful decade. With remarkably minimal resources for development we now largely match what other multi-billion companies and their products can do. So thanks to everyone who contributed time, code and blood and tears to make JFreeReport ... ahem .. Pentaho Reporting great.

And hopefully, ten years from now, we will be able to throw some flowers onto the graves of the dinosaurs of BI.

Linking to a report with the same export type

2012-03-12T14:54:00.002Z

When you create reports connected with each other by links, you want to stay in the same output mode as your source report. When viewing a PDF report, you want the linked report to be PDF too, for instance.

So how would you do that in Pentaho Reporting?

(1) You need to know your current export type.

When you export a report, each output type has a unique identifier similar to this one "pagable/pdf". The identifier consists of

(a) the basic export type:
* pagable for paginated reports or
* table for reports exported as layout-tables
and
(b) the content type
* pdf for PDF export
* html for HTML
* .. and so on.

The BI-Server uses the same identifiers in the reporting plugin to select the correct output target for your reports. The parameter for this is called "output-target" and is documented in the Pentaho Wiki.

You probably know about the "ISEXPORTTYPE" function. This formula function allows you to test for a specific output target when the report runs. To get the export type you now could write a ugly long formula with many nested IF functions.

Or you can use this small BSH-Function instead:

Object getValue()
{
  return runtime.getExportDescriptor();
}

to get the export descriptor string directly.

(2) You need to feed this export identifier into your links.

Use the Drill-Linking functionality to add a manual parameter to your link. Name this parameter "output-target" and link this to your BSH-Function. If your function is named "ExportType", then you would write "=[ExportType]" into the value field.

With that connection made, your reports will now be linked with the same output-target as the source report. Set the "Hide Parameter UI" option if you want to link against the target file without having to manually submit parameter.

Pentaho Reporting 3.9-RC is on the slide to its release

2012-02-13T11:42:00.000Z

Right now the engineers at Orlando are building the Release Candidate of the 4.0 release of the BI-Server. Along with it, we will have a bug-fix release of the Report-Designer and Reporting Engine named 3.9-RC.

The release ships with only a handful of new features and a ship load of bug-fixes.

New feature: Justified Text

This feature has been sitting on my list of things to do for ages. More specifically, since the old "Pre-Pentaho" days, when the internet was still young. We now have a new text-alignment option for your content and a button for it on the toolbar.

New feature: Heavily Scripted Data-Sources

This is my personal favourite of this release. All major data-sources (SQL, MetaData, Mondrian and OLAP4J) can now customize both the configuration of the data-source, the query that gets executed and the result-set that gets produced. At the moment we ship with support for Java-Script and Groovy scripting to make these customizations.

Improvement: CDA-datasource local calls

When running on the same server, CDA data-sources now call the CDA plugin via Java-calls instead of routing all calls through a network layer. THank you, web-details, for this addition.

Improvement: JQuery based report-viewer

Well, not sure whether this is a new feature or improvement, but we now have a pure Java-Script based report-viewer based on JQuery and standard JavaScript. It is so clean that even I can understand that code. Over the last few years, we heard more and more desperate calls for a better report viewer that can be customized to customer needs. If you are a web-developer or know one, you now are one step closer to a customized report parametrization experience. Credits go to Jordan Ganoff for coming up with this great addition.

Improvement: Data-sources now obfuscate stored passwords.

When writing PRPT files, we now obfuscate all passwords so that they are not as asy to read. Note that this does not make any change to any skilled attacker - as anyone with a debugger or access to the source-code can see how these passwords are en- and de-coded. If you need true security for your database credentials, you still have to use JNDI connections and ensure that only trustworthy administrators can access the server configuration.

Bug-Fixes: A load of layouter related issues. Subreports processing with page-footers and repeated group-footers was buggy. The HTML content produced by the HTML output writer is now much cleaner and less verbose. The table-datasource editor now can remove multiple rows at once and has other usability problems fixed as well. For a complete list, have a look at the release notes on our JIRA system.

Get the full list of cases in our JIRA system.

Tidying up our HTML exporter

2012-01-11T19:05:00.001Z

When it comes to flexibility, Pentaho Reporting always had a knack for erring on the obsessive side. With calculation formulas and scripting everywhere, a OEM or implementation partner has plenty of options to get the report just right.

Our HTML export makes no exception here. Last year I talked a bit about the ability to inject custom HTML or JavaScript into the output to produce a richer web-experience, like Fancy Tooltips.

Injecting Scripts happens via two special attributes ("html::append-body" and "html::apend-body-footer") which insert the raw content either before or after the generated content. So far nothing new.

Writing proper JavaScript is a art on its own, and is a lot easier when the resulting HTML document has a clean and digestible structure. The output of the Pentaho Reporting Engine was usually filled with numerous spans and divs, making it hard to wade through the elements generated by the report.

With the latest bug-fix for Pentaho Report Designer 3.9 the report generator produces clean and minimalistic HTML. Over the last two days, I implemented a filter to check for inherited CSS styles.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) defines two classes of style attributes: Local attributes and inherited attributes. The normal attributes are only defined for the current element. Attributes like "border" or "margin" only make sense for current element and would cause visual disturbances if passed on to the child elements. Inherited styles, like all font properties (color, family or size) get inherited. If a child element does not define its own settings for these properties, the child uses the parent element's style as its own.

By encoding this logic into the HTML report output we can now omit all inherited styles if the same style has been defined on a parent element already. At the same time we can omit all local styles if the style is empty (no border, 0-pt padding etc.). After applying all these optimizations, most elements actually have no own style definitions anymore. This alone makes the report more readable, but we can do better.

As long as the style is empty and the element does not define local HTML attributes ("id", "class" or any of the "html::on" attributes, we now can safely omit writing the element's tag. For most cases, this now reduces the complexity of the HTML-DOM greatly and navigating the DOM becomes a lot easier.

Killing XActions for Reporting - slowly and with pleasure

2011-12-07T15:33:00.001Z

The new Pentaho-Metadata data-source scripting-extension I produced recently seems to be well-received. We now have a great opportunity to fully cut back on XActions for plain reporting uses.

Many users still have to stick with their old XAction driven reports. I assume that they do not do that because they enjoy the pain, or love programming in XML. No, the majority needs to drive parameter queries where the query itself is computed. Reasons for that are many:

If everything is placed in one query, the query gets insanely complex and unmaintainable.
The query access legacy systems with no sane data models or weird partitioned tables.
The data-source needs to be configured based on some other parameter before it is used.

Now users who have been locked in by these cases can now free themselves from the slavery of weird XML-programming. I happily announce that

Pentaho Reporting now ships with sane scripting support for JDBC, Pentaho Metadata, all Mondrian and all OLAP4J data-sources.

Read more »

Doing the performance dance (again)

2011-12-01T14:48:00.001Z

I just changed another bit of the table-export while integrating a patch for PRD-3631. Although the patch itself did take a few illegal shortcuts, it showed me a easier way of calculating the cell-backgrounds for the HTML, Excel and RTF exports of Pentaho Reporting.

After a bit more digging, I also fixed some redundant calls in the HTML and Excel exports for merged cells and row-styles. Both resulted in repeated calls to the cell-background calculator and were responsible for slowing down the reporting engine more than necessary.

The performance of my test reports improved a bit with those changes. But if any, then this case has shown me that clean report design is the major driver of a fast export.

Read more »

Pentaho Reporting's Metadata DataSources now with more scripting power

2011-11-24T15:48:00.001Z

Pentaho Reporting is rather flexible. No, astonishingly flexible. Calculations for styles, attributes and even queries make sure that there is always a way to tweak a report exactly the way you need it. But until now, there were a few things that were not exactly easy. Custom Data-sources and their method of calculated queries were one of them.

With today's code drop, this story has fundamentally changed. The Pentaho Metadata data-source is the first data-source that combines static queries with optional scripting features. There is no need to have a "Custom-Metadata" datasource anymore. No need to cram your query calculation logic into a tiny field on the report's query-attribute.

Here it is: The new and greatly improved Pentaho Metadata Data-Source:

Read more »

PRD-3639: On Adding Version checks into Pentaho Reporting

2011-11-09T14:26:00.000Z

From time to time I get support requests from users who try to create reports in the latest Pentaho Report Designer and then try to run it in a ancient installation of the Pentaho BI-Server. I already wrote about the limitations Einstein placed on us software developers, so lets all agree - it's not possible and there will be no fix.

Along with a Voodoo-security change that obscures all passwords stored in a PRPT file, I now prevent the horse from ever drinking petrol again. I added a strict check while a report is parsed so that newer versions of a PRPT file cannot be opened in older servers. Whenever you try such a thing, you will now get a very clear error message telling you:

The report file you are trying to load was created with Pentaho Reporting 12.0 but you are trying to run it with Pentaho Reporting 3.9.0. Please update your reporting installation to match the report designer that was used to create this file.

and if you just missed a patch release, you will be able to continue, but get a warning urging you to upgrade.

The report file you are trying to load was created with Pentaho Reporting 3.9.5 but you are trying to run it with Pentaho Reporting 3.9.0. Your reporting engine version may not have all features or bug-fixes required to display this report properly.

Older releases that did not store version information in a usable format inside the PRPT files will not be checked. This check only applies to released versions. All development versions do not store any version information and do not validate version information they may find in the files. If you are using development versions I assume you know what you are doing.

For the upcoming 3.9.0 release, you won't see any impact. The first time this check will be hit will be Pentaho Reporting 4.0 later next year and from that moment on I will never have to talk about poisoning my poor old horse with petrol again (it prefers bio-diesel anyway).

A Message from the Trenches ..

2011-11-03T16:29:00.001Z

Over the last 6 weeks I finally found the time to dive into the crosstab related development. Crosstabbing as a data manipulation exercise is a rather easy and straight forward as an algorithm. Printing simple crosstabs without regard for user defined calculations is not hard either - if you are willing to stick to the simple model for eternity. But integrating the crosstabbing code so that the layouting uses our existing capabilities of style- and attribute-expressions, flexible layouts and decent scalability even when processing massive amounts of data - that takes more than a two-weeks prototype hacking.

Master your page-breaks in the Pentaho Report Designer

2011-10-07T16:18:00.001+01:00

It is funny how at times the same question or problem flares up from many disconnected developers leading them to ask the same question in just a few days. The most recent incident of this sort of questions could be paraphrased as:

How the $%&§ do these pagebreaks work

Pentaho Reporting allows you to control Pagebreaks via two style settings: "pagebreak-before" and "pagebreak-after" indicating whether you want to start a new page before or after the band or section prints. Pagebreaks are usually set on any of the root level bands. Root level bands are all main sections you see in the report, like the "group-header", "group-footer", "report-header" or "report-footer" or the "details" section. Pagebreaks on these bands are always honoured, but you can add breaks to other locations as well.
Read more »

A CDF based parameter viewer

2011-09-26T08:36:00.000+01:00

At our community conference in Frascati yesterday I gave a talk on how to replace the old GWT report viewer with a slim CDF based report viewer.

Giving Granny a Face-Lifting

This is the slightly edited full-text version of this talk.

Are you tired of our trusted GWT report viewer

When we introduced Pentaho Reporting 3.5, one of the major new features we added was the ability to run Pentaho Reports directly in the BI-Server without the need for writing or generating XActions. This feature instantly removed the number one headache our users had with reports on the server - the need for an additional runtime file, the XAction. The file contained the same information they already specified in the report designer. But to edit the file later, they would need to go into a totally different editor to do some sort of magical programming. Ordinary business users could and would not do that.
Read more »

Rome: Pentaho Community ante portas

2011-09-22T10:10:00.000+01:00

Oh yes! It's that time of the year again. It's community time - this year in Frascati, Italy.

As usual its late September, so time to gather again to see what exciting new developments are brewing in the community. From reading the talk announcements, it seems we will have another full scheduled packed with new projects, field reports from the trenches and the usual sharing of ideas, techniques and general chatter.

Surely, that is something that Twitter, IRC and Blogs or a Forum can never do. Random talks to random people that spark random thoughts that ignite random brain cells.

Back in June I wrote a posting on how to create your own report viewer for the Pentaho BI-Server. That article sparked quite some interest. Seems that many people feel the pain of working with a monolithic GWT application. My personal favourite bugger is the 4 minutes compile time each time I make a change. What is yours?

On Saturday I will give an 30 minutes talk about ways to retire the GWT viewer in favour of a better, more lightweight solution. Thanks to Jordan, the talk will contain amazing live code! It will contain XML. It may contain pixies and dragons. It will not contain XUL nor GWT.

Well, as a full-time code wrestler for Pentaho reporting and the Pentaho Report Designer I do not experience the adrenaline rush caused by real world projects. So I'll be like Mr. Vampire - let me suck you dry for feedback, for things that did work well over the last year, and things that may not work well. And hey, hearing any feedback is good. It shows that all the code written does make a positive difference - not just for our sales team but for real world people with real world problems to solve.

In that way, I do look forward to all the talks. And - yes, I admit it - the Italian wine and Galliano and Grappa!

PRD-3553 - or the low performance of large reports

2011-08-25T13:45:00.000+01:00

The funny thing about most bugs is, that for most parts they go completely unnoticed. No one ever hits them or if they do they think its just normal weird behaviour. (Thanks, Crystal Reports & Co for training your former (and our current) users!)

One of these bugs I had in my bucket for the last week was a rather nasty error condition on reports with a large number of rows. Reports like that are usually used either for data exports or for performance tests, as a human user barely reads the first sentences of an e-mail, not to speak of hundreds of pages of dull numbers.

What was the bug?

Reports with large numbers of rows were incredible slow when run as Excel/HTML/RTF/Table-CSV or Table-XML export. The slow down was worse the more rows were in the report.

The original e-mail contained a test report that demonstrated the issue. (Note: Providing me with a replication path tremendously increases your chances of getting a bug-fix fast. You help me, and I'll help you.) The tests they ran on their machine showed a clearly exponential curve:

# of Rows	Time in seconds
5000	16
10000	28
20000	90
50000	360

What caused the bug?

How to create a fancy tooltip in HTML reports with PRD

2011-08-12T13:04:00.000+01:00

When you create reports that are mainly used on the web, you probably want to enrich your reports with some basic interactivity. Charts need links and tooltips on their data, drill downs need to be defined and hopefully the information overload of ordinary reports gets reduced via fancy images, hidden sections that only show up on demand and other techniques.

The most basic way of creating a annotation on a report is to provide tooltips. Sadly the HTML creators were weird scientists who were used to long and boring lists of footnotes instead of in-lined annotations.

Today I am showing you how to create fancy, JavaScript based tooltips onto a report. You can adapt the same technique to create other interactive elements, including Google Maps integrated reports or other Web-2.0 mash-ups.
Read more »

What's New in Pentaho Report Designer 3.8.1 - Bug-Fixes!

2011-08-05T15:40:00.001+01:00

With weeks and weeks of doing nothing bug bug-fixes passing by, we finally reached the point where there is a new release of the reporting tools and the BI-Server comes along. So let's have a look on what changed and why you want to upgrade as fast as possible.

The most exciting new addition for everyone probably is the Pentaho Interactive Reporting service. Pentaho Interactive Reporting replaces the old Web-Based Ad-Hoc Query and Reporting (WAQR) tool. WAQR was one of those things that get the job done, but do so neither gracefully nor with style. But in the 21st century you need something better. There are times where you can't go for the full featured hardcore-nerdy Report-Designer option.

Pentaho Interactive Reporting is aimed to supplement our reporting solutions. Technologically it stands between Analyzer being a complete Ad-Hoc tool for exploring the OLAP models of the data-warehouses and the Pentaho report designer, a tool for creating standardized reports for printing or non-interactive access to the data.

Apart from opening up some APIs for Pentaho Interactive Reporting, this release only contains bug-fixes. This release contains fixes in the layouter, the parameter handling and the cascading prompt capabilities inside the platform and the report-designer and fixes some missing functionality inside the charting system.

Overall, 63 bugs got squashed in the process.

Pentaho Reporting 3.8.1 is now in the final build process and from my part the work is done now (assuming that the final tests do not come up with any show-stopping bugs). Judging from the last releases, the final build should be uploaded to our public Sourceforge page in a next weeks.

Read more »

Don't hardcode host names, use JNDI

2011-08-01T16:49:00.001+01:00

I got a e-mail earlier this week, asking for some help in migrating reports.

Hey Thomas,

I have a poop load of reports with hard coded 
ip addresses (yeah I know – but they didn't 
have DNS entries until now) that I'd like to 
globally change.  I'm thinking of something 
along the lines of "zcat | sed | gzip" but 
something like this would only work on 
compressed files, not an archive of files.  

So – I was wondering if you had any ideas, 
maybe even a utility based on code we already 
have to create and open these bad boys.  
We could even have some known locations to 
modify 

Like>  prpt-replace –dbConnectionHost "192.168.1.100" "mydb.mycorporation.com"

Or maybe use file and xpath to denote the 
attribute to change.

(The names involved were changed to protect the guilty.)

Well, hard-coding database connection information in every report is never a good idea in no environment. If your database host or credentials changes you are truly and well .. in trouble.

So how can you avoid this trouble in the first place?Read more »

How to use the Barcode element in Pentaho Reporting

2011-07-25T21:16:00.000+01:00

Barcodes are a easy way to convey information in a machine readable way. With Pentaho Reporting, you can print a large set of barcodes in your reports. Barcodes in Pentaho Reporting are provided by the "simple-barcodes" element. And creating barcodes is as simple as the name of this element promises.Read more »

Access Databases with Dynamic Table Names in Pentaho Reporting

2011-07-20T18:27:00.001+01:00

Every now and then we get the question on how to create a report on database tables with a dynamic date stamped table name. Sounds weirdly cryptic? Well, instead of having a single table for all orders, these systems may have many small tables for all orders of a specific month.

I tried hard to come up with a potential reason for these things:

Maybe the database is so weak that it can't handle more than a few thousand rows in a table. But both MySQL nor PostgreSQL are quite capable for some serious data storage (if used right). And even Oracle can do that - and if you have enough money to buy a Oracle license you have money to buy a server (-farm, Oracle ain't cheap!) too.
Maybe they want to speed up data access to the table. After all, a SELECT * FROM TABLE takes a long time if you don't use a WHERE clause or a proper index.
Maybe they have not heard of normalization.
Maybe they love to have separate tables so that they can remove the data of older months. A SQL DELETE command is black magic. Deleting the database file in the filesystem is quicker.

So if you are using such a system - drop me a note. I am dying to know what application creates such a data-structure.

Reporting on these database structures is not straight forward and usually considerably slower than working on a proper data model. And here is how you do it, in simple steps:
Read more »

Video: Design for Developers

2011-07-17T18:40:00.000+01:00

More often than I like to see it, I receive sample reports (usually as part of a bug report) that makes me feel sorry for the poor souls receiving the resulting documents.

Reporting is as much about numbers as it is about conveying a message effectively. Yes, it is possible to just send out a flood of numbers in a 100+ pages document and let the receiver mine for the right information. But in most cases, such reports simply never get read.

Remember: Data is not information.

Data is just random facts thrown out into the world. Information is data put into a context that makes sense to the receiver. Don't send out data, send information.
Read more »

Enrich your report with sparklines

2011-07-13T18:31:00.000+01:00

Sparklines are a great way to convey a lot of information in a simple and readable way. Sparklines can be used to plot changes of metrics over time. Edward Tufte uses temperatures of patients in a hospital and share prices as examples.

Bart Maertens wrote about sparklines when Pentaho Reporting 3.5 came out. At that time, he had to do a lot of SQL magic to get data into them. With the addition of the MULTIVALUEQUERY formula function in Pentaho Reporting 3.8, this process got a lot easier.

Pentaho Reporting comes with three Sparkline type elements. Sparkline elements are minimalistic, they do not have any axis labels or legends.

Line Sparks: A small line chart that shows the change of values over time. Line charts are good to visualize trends over time. The last data point can be highlighted for better readability.
Bar Sparks: A small bar chart that allows to compare absolute values over a time scale. Bar charts should be used when you need to concentrate on the ratio between values instead of the general trends.
Pie Sparks: A small pie chart that visualizes a single value in relation to a total value.

Charting: Categorical Charts and XY-Charts

2011-07-08T20:58:00.000+01:00

Reporting without charting is like zombies without the inevitable hunt for fresh brains. You can do it, yes, but it is sure not fun.

These days, charting in Pentaho Reporting is done via the "chart-element" in the Pentaho Report Designer. Drag the chart field into the canvas, double click on it to open the chart-editor, and start configuring your chart.

So far it's all theory, lets see how charting really works.
Read more »

Pentaho Reporting 3.8.1-RC1 released

2011-07-05T14:45:00.000+01:00

On Friday without much ado, Pentaho uploaded the Release Candidate 1 of Pentaho Reporting 3.8.1 to the Sourceforge servers. This bug-fix release contains only bug-fixes, among the more noteworthy we have PRD-3349 and PRD-3375 (Numbers rounded wrongly) and some changes to the parameter handling so that cascading prompts get more usable inside the report designer and the Pentaho BI-Server.

Full list of all cases closed in this release

Download: Download Pentaho Report Designer 3.8.1-RC1

Creating your own Parameter UI for the Pentaho BI-Server

2011-06-30T12:16:00.003+01:00

Our BI-Server ships with a default GWT parameter UI for the parameter defined on a report. If you had been around for a while, then you will remember the sigh of relieve when we freed everyone from the tyranny of XActions for running simple reports. Since then the parameter capabilities of the reporting module grew and grew with every release making these parameters easier to use than the XActions's original design.

GWT is nice for a old and grumpy Java developer like me, as I do not have to worry about JavaScript (untyped, for heaven's sake, untyped!). But the hardcore nerds like Pedro "JavaScript is my life" Alves do not like the monolithic garbage the GWT compiler spits out. To slow, to heavy, and foremost: Not really extensible unless you recompile the beast for each change. And worst of all: I agree to these complaints.

However, there is a silver lining on the horizon. Our architecture is open, so you are able to replace the GWT code with your own magic with no problems at all. And here is how you would do it:
Read more »

Printing Watermarks with Pentaho Report Designer

2011-06-28T15:56:00.001+01:00

A watermark is a image or other content that is printed in the background of your report. You can use watermarks to indicate a status of your report (Confidential, Draft or For Internal Use Only). Or you can use watermarks to print a form template into the background of your report.

A well defined watermark can transform a report from a uninspired bunch of numbers into a fully branded document that reinforces your companies image in all receivers of the report.

So how do you define a Watermark in Pentaho Reporting?
Read more »

Fun in the UK - Today: Still Banking and Three-UK Mobile Broadband

2011-06-23T17:40:00.003+01:00

So far banking is still a mess - at least I have the IBAN now and that will make sure that I can survive long enough to switch the Lloyds account to a proper bank. Given the fact that Bank of Ireland online banking is at least usable and that they do not charge those insane fees for sending money into the Euro zone, I guess I will move everything there.

But for that I need internet access - and that's the next trouble maker. To setup a landline, phone companies needs about two to three weeks. That is fine and reasonable. So I got myself what they cynically call "mobile internet". British humor at its finest.

For the records, I use Three.co.uk. And I regret it. Despite the fact that the application tells me that there is perfect connection strength, the connection breaks up, sends in the data into the digital nirvana and makes the whole experience painful. For each connection I attempt I can send about 10kb to 15kb of data before the thing breaks down again.

So for checking emails: I can see I have email, I can see the titles (thanks to the IMAP protocol), but I cannot access the mails as the connection times out. Same with the web - I can see the first bits of the web-sites, but then it stalls. And all the web-sites that need an insane amount of javascript to work, well, they just dont work at all.

Its amazing, when I came to Ireland, despite the small size of the country and the well-designed look-and-feel of ruralness and last-centuriness, the infrastructure worked better than in the former empire. When I look at UK services I get the feeling they can't do better than settle for minimal solutions. And on the big picture, the country looks just run down and 'broken by design'.

If these blog entries help to save one prospect customer from such crappy service providers, then they served their purpose well. No one should have to put up with that sort of bad service. If nothing helps - vote with your feet so that they can go down as they obviously deserve it.