LOST, LOCKED and two smoking barrels!

There are two spells in the IT guy's magic book – "Online this! Online that and online everything" and "Typeo everythingo, don't writo".

For someone like me, who has been doing more of "typing" than "writing" for about 2-3 years now, the pen in the hand feels odd. My handwriting has changed so much, that, I don't recognize the letters so much either. I know this is hard to believe, but, it is a fact!

Things didn't matter so much to me. The only time I use a pen is in the morning when I enter the office. It is mandatory to sign in the register. It doesn't matter what the sign looks like or whether it is the same as your "actual" signature. I just lay in an "AVS" there. So, that is all covered. But, when it comes to banking, signatures are treated very differently. Now, let me tell you a sad story of a man who has got locked out of his account in a funny way!

I bank with a very famous international bank. My ATM card expired or all the ATM machines around this place are conspiring against me from withdrawing money. Anyhow, it says on the card that it expires on 30 Sept 2007. Yeah, 1 month ago! Now, banks are supposed to send you the new card before the old one expired.. and.. they did! They sent it to my old address. Are you fingers pointing at me to say –"you should have told them that you have relocated". Well, I had notified the bank and the address has been changed.. I believed! The reason I believed in it - well, the same bank has sent me my renewed Credit card to the address I had mentioned I would be in, without any problems, and, this happened about 2 months ago. So, you would naturally expect them to have their records updated..right? ..WRONG! They hadn't updated the records as I discovered. It has been a month of calls and emails to their customer center . It is almost salary time and a month. Yesterday, I received a message saying that my records have been updated! Ok, now that took so long for a bank that has automated its processes!!?!!?!! Ok, so how did I live? Well, I had withdrawn a good enough amount at the beginning of the month using a cheque (they didn't bother about my signature now!). Now, that I have almost run out of money, I needed to make a withdrawal again, so, I headed to the bank, which is far away, and presented the cheque, smiled and waited for the money. It didn't come! The teller gave me a look and said – "Your signature doesn't match. Can you sign here once more". PFFT! I did and Voila! I had a new signature once more! I carefully explained the reason of my signature being different (yeah! The I have not written in 2 years thing!). She smiled and asked – "Do you have any govt. Issued ID on you, sir? If you do, please meet one of our Customer service executives". A ray of hope? Well.. I showed my PAN ID card and then, I was shown my old signature. I was given a piece of paper to practice on. But, the differences still showed up! It would..DUHH!! The whole thing was unsuccessful and my morning was destroyed!

I don't blame the bank for being so particular about the signature. But, there must be some leave-way, shouldn't there? I have produced an ID and can easily verify ME. Passport, Voters' ID, PAN card, Company letter and ID.. you name the ID, I have it! They could even ask me questions that only I would know about me and my transactions. Well.. I wouldn't have been in such a situation if processes weren't so full of gaps. A lot of companies I have been with or am associated with have these "gaps" in their processes, that, it doesn't seem to help making things easier. The biggest gap became visible when I had sent a message saying – "Please send my ATM card as soon as possible. Do le me know when the card gets dispatched". I get a message saying-"Our records have been updated, all the future correspondences will be sent to the following address (thankfully my latest address!) in future". If you don't call that a GAP, what do you call it?

A well defined process needs to cover all aspects – from initial insertion points to modifications to final closure. There should also be a well-defined Plan B!

I hope I receive my card soon!

"SPARK" is now "EVOLV" (without the "E")

It has been a longtime since I planned a refresh of "Spark". The files sat there in one of my old backup DVDs till they saw the hard disk laser lights last Friday. Besides adding new capabilities and making it all OOP all the way, I was seriously considering making it an offline version. These thoughts were encouraged when Adobe launched the CS3 AIR extension recently. The success of my experiments with AIR kind of got me excited when I saw the extension available for download from Adobe Labs. Then, I thought like a gardner who wanted to replant the whole garden - the whole process would be starting from scratch and would take a longer time than what I had planned for the refresh.

Cutting the chase, one thing led to another and I settled with not having it Offline for now. However, I haven't totally ruled out an offline version in the near future. Back to the table, I fired up Flash CS3 and started with the whole design of the plug n' play modules and associating them with classes, which provided them with the functionality and power (basically, woke up the dead beans..getting them to jump!). I have completed two simple modules - the Editor and the Uploader (without complete file management). The File Management console is the next and it needs to perfectly wind into the Uploader and Page Editor when done, so, this is taking me some figuring out. I have put off doing the Database module till I start on the Analysis module.

Looking at the whole episode, at this point, it looks and feels like a whole new product, hence, my decision was to retire the old one back to the old DVD and give it a whole new wardrobe..and.. a name. So, what would have been "Spark v4.0" is now "Evolv" (Evolve without the "E" and a version number!)

Still wondering what "Spark" is? In a nutshell, it is a Website Management Application. The application is tied to a Website and allows users to manage files, edit content etc. Originally, I had built the whole thing using Flash MX and ASP.NET and then upgraded a few sections to MX 2004. And then, it lay there with the others waiting to hear the sound of the cylinders spinning.
Evolv shares its logic/sense between Flash and ASP.NET too, but, unlike its fore-father, Evolv is a lot cleaner and better organized in every sense. At times, I've had my battles with AS3, especially with case-sensitivity and stuff, and, I am learning it a lot better this way. Long ago, I had sworn not to use AS3 and switch to .NET completely. Thanks to my curiousity I gave into temptation and fell into the well (smiles..the tongue thing!).

May the force be with you!