Flash Of Scarlet - Dream in InfraRED!

Blog changed

2010-07-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,
As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I have moved my blog to http://www.redmedia.in
RSS feeds are available at: http://www.redmedia.in/?feed=rss2
Update your bookmarks and feed readers :)

The Satio Review

2010-05-09T07:05:00.001-07:00

I was actually planning on buying the Xperia X10 when it released. I really couldn't wait for 2 months till it did, and, now, I want that too. Men..and.. gadgets..huh!

I have been using the Sony Ericsson U1i (or the Satio ) for about 4 months now. It costed me about Rs. 28K. I had read up a few reviews about it before I went to buy it. Most reviews echoed the same thoughts – Feature Loaded but buggy software. Whatever they said, I kinda liked the phone.

Specifications? Well, the Satio is really feature loaded – 12.1 MP camera with LED and Xenon flash, GPS, WiFi, WLAN, Bluetooth, 3G HSDPA (7.2 MBPS) HSUPA (3.6 MBPS), a big 3.6 inch touch screen, Web browser with Flash support, TV out etc. Like most other SE phones, the OS is based on Symbian S60 5^th edition with customized UI screens. It comes preloaded with trial versions of QuickOffice and WisePilot GPS navigation system. It also comes pre-loaded with YouTube app.

I should say that the original software that came with the phone was a bit buggy. However, it didn't freeze or crash on me. There were a few rendering problems at times mainly. SE have released a couple of updates so far and my phone is up-to-date, faster and better. So, make sure you keep your Satio updated. If you are an IM/Social media user, you will need to download apps. The second software patch I received had a Facebook app. So, I didn't have to download that. I hated (and still hate) the fact that the phone comes with trial versions of QuickOffice and WisePilot. I tried buying QuickOffice online and the payment gateway kept having issues. So I uninstalled it. As for WisePilot, the software was a bit expensive for me, anyway, I found a cheaper and quicker alternative on the net and use it. So, that was another uninstall.

I like taking photos and the 12.1 MP camera is really good as expected. The Xenon Flash is not that powerful (as a regular camera), it is enough with decent lighting around. Night photos aren't that great. You could set the camera in Manual mode or auto mode. However, don't expect manual settings like on a DSLR/SLR. There are different shoot modes you could select from – Normal, Panorama, BestPic, Smile detection and Touch Capture. The thing I like here is that you could hold the phone like a digicam and shoot. The size of the phone makes it comfortable. You can also use macro mode and set white balance among a whole bunch of other typical CyberShot settings. It is a good cam whenever you don't take your DSLR out. J Once you take a pic, you can upload it directly to Picasa or blogger or even add your own webservice.

The Touch Screen is not as good as the iPhone. It is just enough to get you around. It does get a bit slow at times, especially, if you have a few apps running. I guess you could expect that with a 600Mhz processor. The menus are neat. I would have liked the Phone book shortcut on the home screen also. The phone supports handwriting and I must say that the hand writing recognition is very good! I prefer the smaller onscreen keyboard, which, could be a bit hard to use if you have stubby fingers. Luckily, the Satio has a bigger pad for it! I prefer typing with my fingers than using the stylus. The smaller keyboard (which I use) has got good sensitivity and precision.

Let's talk about Music, baby! Oh yeah! Ok, music quality is great only if you are using the walkman silence-out ear phones or attach it to a good speaker. The on-phone speaker gives a more tinny output. I love to have a bass punch and the Satio has it, inspite of the fact that it has no presets or an equalizer. You can load up the 8GB card that comes with the phone and listen to it for about 5-6hrs continuously before having to recharge the battery again. The charge doesn't last more than 2-3 hrs if you are watching video, due to the screen size and contrasts.

Normal phone features function as expected. Connectivity options are also really good. I use 3G and the speeds are really good, whether on the phone or connected to my laptop. Yeah, a lot of it depends on my service provider, but, the phone supports it and that makes me happy! The thing I wish for is an option to share my card as a drive when I am connected on WLAN. Data transfer over Bluetooth is patchy. Connection drops when you are transferring large files and especially if you are just doing a drag drop over Windows explorer rather than using the PC Suite. USB connectivity is available and is much better. If you are using PC Suite, transfer over Bluetooth is better, but it still takes a long time to transfer those biggies!

Overall, I would give the Satio a 7 out of 10. What pulls down the ratings is the Bluetooth speed (as mentioned above), Lack of free productivity software (Office), Lack of free GPS software, a bit of a buggy phone OS (freezes at times!) etc. Ideally a powerful phone like the Satio should have these traits to become a hit and I guess they need to learn that from Nokia in some ways. I am a huge SE fan and I want them to make the phone the best! J

Events, CS5 and life..

2010-04-17T03:50:00.001-07:00

First..CS5

After watching numerous demos and videos posted on the internet, I was very eager to see the launch of the Adobe CS5 suite. Luckily, the launch timing wasn't too late and I got to see the whole thing. I am not so much of a designer, but, Adobe Photoshop CS5 really gets my hats off among the rest!

I remember that during one of our group discussions about product life-cycles and how a product loses market to another because the Nth feature has been added to it and the software actually gets bloated due to lack of innovation. It was sad that one of the examples that was sighted there was Photoshop (for whatever reasons!) and I am very happy to see that the Photoshop team @Adobe actually proved the theory wrong and made us realize the huge mistake. Photoshop CS5 kicks ass! The new Content-aware fill and HDR really makes me say "Duhh" to the example sighted the other day. Photoshop team.. u rock!

My favourite software – Flash is the next in my CS5 list. I was happy to see the improvements in the Flash IDE – improved code hinting and code addition, code snippets panel, XML-based FLA files, Flash Builder integration and the fact that you could publish content to any target now (including the iPhone) and other features. More on the iPhone part later! My pick of the list would be the code hinting and auto-code addition part. I've always wanted the IDE to automatically write the initial lines of my class file (package, public class.. part!). It was a real bummer that the earlier versions didn't have it and the feature is a real time saver. Of course, I also like the "publish anywhere" feature, but, I guess I would be using that lesser, so, it doesn't make my top feature.

Illustrator CS 5, Premiere CS5 and Dreamweaver CS5 also have good features, but, I cannot say much about them, since, they aren't a part of my daily life. The features, makes them interesting though.

The new versions - Adobe Flex 4, Flash Builder 4 and CF Builder were also released a few days earlier than the CS5 launch. Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 certainly makes my heart go wild! J

I am eagerly waiting for the release of AIR 2.0.

The tale of the 2 A's

To be honest, I have never liked Apple. Somehow, the very fact that their products use the pronoun in front of the product name made me feel yucky! I forcefully got myself an iPod, which I bought more to be used as my standby hard disk than a music player. I hardly used it, thanks to my Satio and my earlier W705. I kinda found it cumbersome to use. Somehow, iTunes never worked properly on my laptop and I wasn't very interested in trying to fix the issue. I did find a tiny plugin for Winamp, which I used for transferring songs. Stepping back into the topic, well, Apple's statements in the recent past were shocking and very silly! As a software developer, it is a closed opportunity. In my understanding of the world, I guess, we only grow when we are open and receptive.

For people, who thought they had a chance to get into the Apple development territory and find Objective C or any "supported" platform a bit difficult to learn, given the circumstances, the statement comes as a huge blow. I read in some post the other day that Mr. Jobs thinks that Flash is "slow and buggy" and the claim that the application store or "ecosystem" would filled with very generic and low-quality programs that will not be using the unique hardware of the iPhone and iPad and will hinder the progress of the platform.

Here's a fanboy with some "clarifications": http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/04/10/five-tremendous-apple-vs-adobe-flash-myths/

Other things..

I don't want to waste the page talking about half-bitten fruits. As mentioned in my previous entry, I will soon be migrating my blog to my own space. The development of the new site is going along fine, but, it is slower than I expected. I had to re-create my database from scratch to support some new features I have in mind for the CMS. Also, the development of the CMS is kinda stagnated a bit, coz, I want to use Flex 4 for it than Flex 3.

See you shortly!

Migrating soon

2010-03-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, It has been a long time coming! Somehow, one thing led to another and I had to keep putting off the final release of my new website - RedSpace/Redmedia. I call it "InfraRED" (Yeah! kinda like the Caption of this blog). What I have tried to do with the website is to keep it almost minimal but dynamic. The site works on my "Componentized Website" concept, where, each part of the website is a component that can be enabled/disabled from a configuration file. Here's a good example of a "Componentized concept", which, I created for the header of a Landing Page for Lenovo: http://www.redmedia.in/Prototype/lptest/rsAccordion_refresh.html
The site has been created using Flash (ActionScript 3.0), PHP, XML and MYSQL. The site is also tightly integrated with the REDSpark Site Admin system, which is currently in the initial phase of development (meaning more details later).
Basically, what all this means is.. I will soon stop blogging here on Blogger and start afresh on my site. Ofcourse, it should take about 15-20 days for the whole process. All links will need to be updated :)

2010..

2010-01-03T01:28:00.001-08:00

Every year, I write my new year's post a few days before or on the eve of the 1^st of January. This year, why shouldn't it be any different? It should, so I am typing up this one a few days later! J

Before I really start pouring in the words, I would first like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I am sure this year should be better than the year just gone.

Somehow, 2009 didn't seem the best to me. I remember grumbling about how artificial people were and how life's gotten a bit "routine" in my new years' eve blog post. Something in my gut didn't feel right back then. Maybe it was the alcohol odour mixed with the cigarette smoke that gave me the tummy ache. Just as the old saying goes – "What happens on the first day of the year will keep happening", the whole year was kind of a tummy ache in ways. The economy did a "rolli polli" and a lot of things didn't shape up too well because of that!

At work, most understandably, we didn't get our yearly appraisals (the money part!), but many of us did walk away with promotions and bonuses. For now, things seem a lot better at the workplace – more organized and more interesting. We have a kewl new boss and we kinda seem to think alike in some ways, so, as far as I am concerned, it has become more "developer-friendly" from "banner-friendly".

A year into being a married man certainly changed me. Marriage isn't about added responsibilities, it about being more committed, thoughtful and a whole lot more. It is nice to keep telling people we understand each other perfectly. There have been instances where we didn't, but, because we understood each other perfectly, we made each other understand what we didn't understand and made sure we understood each other perfectly the next time we didn't understand each other. Confusing, huh? Well, that is the way we deal with it and laugh about it all through. We both know we love each other a lot and we will understand each other well.

When I bid adieu to Lucy (my previous dog), I couldn't think of having another other dog. It took me a lot of time to cope up with the loss of Lucy. My "perfect family" picture always had a dog in it. We had to have one and we do. We added Snoopy to our family and he is our sweetheart J

A few years ago, when I couldn't really drive much, except in a straight-line, I drove this lovely car – The Fiat Palio 1.2 Sport. It roared and rocketed as we drove through the campus. I had selected the car I would buy, back then. Of course, it had to be red and more powerful than its predecessor. Luckily for me, Fiat brought out the 1.6 Sport in Formula Red. It took me a few years and 2009 had to be the year I bought my first car – A Formula Red colour Fiat Palio 1.6 Sport. I added a Sony Xplod system and things rock while we rocket into the distance.

A lot of my friends' got married, got new jobs, went abroad, came back home etc..

"Every cloud has a silver lining". 2009 wasn't the best of the year in many ways. I had my fair share of good luck and I am thankful for that!

2010, I am sure would be more awesome – the CS5 Suite would release, Flash Builder 4 would release, Sony Xperia X10 would release, Linkin Park should release their new album (I hope), I will get my driver's licence, Schumi's back to F1 with a Alo/Mas pairing at Ferrari, we will be celebrating our 2 year wedding anniversary and Snoops' first b'day and a whole lot more.

Generally, I don't let out my New years' Resolutions. This time, I will be different. Here are some of mine:

I will become more "health conscious" – eat less oily stuff, more veggies and fruits, exercise regularly
I will throw away a huge chunk of my lethargy.
Travel more, take more pictures, work at my photography skills and maybe get my lens J
Build and streamline my application development portfolio a lot more.
I will be less sarcastic and reduce the "at-ur-face" stuff J

At the end of 2010, I hope I am as successful as I was at the end of 2009. I am sure I will be able to check off atleast 4/5 of the above. J

Zinc 3.0 versus AIR

2009-12-23T06:58:00.001-08:00

Adobe AIR certainly changed the way we think about rich desktop applications. It was a real sigh of relief for me when the details of AIR came out during the initial days. We no longer had to battle with the Flash security sandbox while building desktop/kiosk applications. A lot of our dreams could turn to reality. It took a few lines of code and the power of Flex to build a simple Picasa desktop widget to display your Picasa album pics. The same code with a few changes can be ported to the web as well. Now, that's kewl!

As the human needs grow, we want more power in our applications, to not just build apps that rely on the power of the Flex SDK, but, to push the limits a bit further and talk more to the system, use DLLs built using .NET or other languages, configure the application easily setting numerous options, create screensavers, use the text-to-speech engine to make things more interactive, launch other applications and the biggest of them all – do no framework installation. A lot of clients just ask for a simple EXE which doesn't rely on other installations to run. Even though AIR 2.0 address a couple of necessities, it doesn't offer them all.

I am not against AIR and in favour of Zinc or the vice versa. I like them both. They have their own pros and cons and it is up to the requirement and the developer to decide which is best suited. I like Adobe AIR because – its FREE, you can create AIR applications from Flash Builder, Flash IDE or HTML, the certification makes it a secure way to distribute applications, there are so many things you can readily do because of the community reach that Adobe AIR has. Multidmedia Zinc 3.0 is expensive and so is new offering Inferno (I love the name!). Using Zinc, the amount of extensions you could use is really a big point to note. If AIR gives us some of these abilities, it would certainly be awesome!

At the end of the day, the technology we choose is established on "client requirements". The reason I have seen a lot of clients deviate from the use of AIR for deployment is because AIR needs the AIR framework installed. It is not too big a deal for us, but, in closed environments like at my workplace, where, computer users are "Power users" and would not have installation rights for software, AIR draws a big question mark. Most applications I have developed over the years are really simple little applications – Widgets, kiosk apps etc which have the big basic requirement – "Every user should be able to install the app on their desktop". This makes me go back to Zinc every time, even though, I, as a developer, would naturally prefer AIR.

Would Adobe have to worry about Zinc? I am sure it doesn't have to. With the amount of reach and community interest it has generated over the years, AIR is here to stay big time! Most certainly, AIR has a long way to go before everybody accepts it. Adobe took a big step forward with the new features introduced in AIR 2.0. Zinc fights a very good game. I wish the technology was cheaper though. J

Branding 2.0 – The final part

2009-12-06T00:00:00.001-08:00

Yup, "Tomorrow" took a few days to come. Anyway, here goes the final part.

When it comes to online/digital advertising, banners play quite a part! We see them almost everywhere – in all forms, shapes and sizes. The amount of money and research that goes into this simple form of creative is actually very large. Whether people actually click it or just turn a blind spot, it has quite a success rate at times. Good online real estate is expensive. A lot of companies (agencies) do some research on the site that would display their banner before actually mocking up the creative. The research would be on the type content, colour, speech tone etc that the site carries, other ads or banners displayed, user interactions they could make use of and a whole lot of other things. All this effort for a banner that may not be seen? Well, I am not a big fan of banner ads, but, I must say that it is really an effective form of advertising. If you have an interesting concept and it is interactive..well.. Moreover, the various sizes are displayed in various areas of various sites or various pages of the same site or various sites – a lot of "various" makes one big statement – "Just see me already!" or "Ok, I am a banner promoting a product. Keep me in mind. You'll see more of me around..don't forget to say Hi". In all its sense, it builds a brand! For example, on my tech sites I go to everyday, Dell banner ads keep showing up in various sizes and colours. Even though I have a blind spot to normal animated banners, these banners somehow don't seem to stay out of my sight. I don't really know what they say. All I know is, they talk Dell!

Landing pages, EDMs have their say in the digital space too. Our email boxes are lie cluttered with many EDMs every day. I admit it that I haven't seen even 10% of the lots I receive, but, people who want to see will see and click. That is the way it works. It is kind of a trial and error if you think about it. What I am trying to say here is – these forms of assets maybe traditional, but, they still live and will live on. They will take new forms and formats, but they will live on!

There is also a Social media advertising frenzy that has picked up pace during the past few years and especially during the hard times of the recession. Brands resorted to people to carry their brand and product forward. Twitter, MySpace and Facebook became the major medium. Companies have their Facebook pages and invite people to join in. People are successfully building networks, promoting brands and products. In fact, even Human resource and staffing agencies have people on LinkedIn, doing searches, going through profiles and contacting candidates. This goes to show that if you know who your target audience are and what medium they use to network, you have got yourself a possibly profitable medium to reach out. Recently an acquaintance asked me if they allow advertising on Farmville. Neither of us had played FarmVille, but, the game is the talk of the town, and, if you are a maker of farming/farm products, what better way to advertise!

The success of a brand online depends on the fame among its users/viewers, interactivity, research, innovation, network and good catchy copy. The real question is – Are you building a brand or selling a product? Let us remember that the success of the product depends on its strong brand power! Banner ads, much like print or TV don't immediately prompt users to buy products. People buy stuff when they know for certain that it is well worth it and they have done enough research about it. Someone once asked me – "Should we have a "Buy Now" button on the banner or a "More Details" button on it? It isn't a very easy question to answer, even after considering all the messaging and creative line. Would you visit a store and buy a TV because a banner says they are the No.1 manufacturers or the TV has n list of features?

Branding 2.0 is about:

Doing your own research
Creating a whole network buzz
Choosing the right medium
Understanding the user and his behaviour
Right interaction
Building true brand without creating a hype

Build your brand! Make the millions!

Branding 2.0

2009-11-23T08:10:00.001-08:00

I work in an advertising agency and often wonder if what life revolved around is really something of mass and matter. We build brands, giving a unique identity to products and companies. It takes a lot of effort in terms of thought, money, research, ideation, visualization, creation and development to build a strong brand.

Our fathers laid a strong foundation in print - carefully choosing visuals, colours, type and text to convince and put faith in people about the brand. I remember, as kids we used to swear by the big names – Levi's, Nike etc and became tribes which accumulated specific brands and not even look at other alternatives, which would have worked out cheaper or better. The foundation that the "fathers of advertising" laid down, were so strong, that, people became more "brand ambassadors". Each one of us held brand(s) to our heart and made sure it stuck that way. Did the brand become "personal"? It is a strange outcome if you think about it actually. On one hand, companies wanted to establish their identity and the identity of their product/service. They communicated with people telling them that the company A made product A and that product A was awesome! The people believed in product A so much, that, it won its own identity and got away from the company a bit. People knew Product A and talked about product A. Web 2.0 didn't change this even a bit, in fact, it became a medium. Anyone can get online on Twitter or Facebook and talk about a brand/product with opinions. People can contribute to these opinions and the actual company can do nothing about it. Marketing and PR agencies are kind of helpless in this respect and can do very little to actually change people's thoughts and feelings. A hundred million banner ads displayed every 15 seconds hardly has an impact. Tribe 2.0 believe in a more strong and interactive mechanism to build and affirm faith. That's where interactive agencies took their form. A lot of interactive agencies build brands using these medium. If you have more controls on things, they fail. Freedom of interaction and speech gives you that much more depth.

During the 80s and 90s, brands were product driven and customer driven. Now, it is all about the "Brand experience". The "total branding" seems to be just lying on the internet and print has become just a reinforcer. People search, people read, people blog, people interact, people experience..all on the internet. Before I went in to buy my old i-mate, I rushed to an internet cafe to actually read multiple reviews about it rather than read a 20 page catalogue that came with the product. I also went to the imate.com website to go through the various offers and support options etc, which, would finally help me decide. People review when they experience and people believe what people say their interactions.

[more in Part 2.0 tomoro]

Why AIR is so kewl

2009-10-31T21:54:00.001-07:00

Developers like me, who wanted their applications to look cool, must've surely passed through a phase when we used a Flash UI for a VB application and thought – "Wish Flash could do much more than just being a snazzy UI". It wasn't simple to make the UI look good. Every time you needed an extra bit of functionality, you needed to edit and re-export the SWF. It was also a bit of a mess when it came to the workflow. The VB developer and the UI developer had to keep making changes and pass on the list each time a change request came in. We used to call such apps – "FSCommand Splash". As the Flash versions released, we needed that bit more to help us make better applications. Component Binding was a blessing and so were the Data connectivity components. They certainly made tasks easier. Still, there was something we all wanted and tried to accomplish somehow – FILE IO. Of course, there were third-party applications such as MDM Zinc that gave us quite a bit of power, but, that was a separate investment and a different story altogether.

When AIR was launched, I guess it was a big turning point in most of our lives. We could do much more than just building applications with skins. We had something more powerful than that! Cross-platform and Browser-free meant we could build those "Rich Internet Applications" we always wanted to, whether you using a Flash, Flex or Dreamweaver user. AIR helped us use what we already knew and extend capabilities of our applications by harnessing the power of the internet and combining it with the power of the desktop. With built-in File API, well, it really pushed a lot of hurdles away. You also got a built-in database in SQLLite. We didn't need good ol' VB to do the job anymore. This was good in the business sense too. Not only could they give the client an application that looked great, but, they could also leverage their existing resources to build these applications, thereby, cutting costs. They could also cut costs by employing only necessary resources, eliminating the necessity to have other platform developers. Meaning to say, you team now only had a UI Designer > Flash/Flex/Web Developer > Tester with other platform developers as an optional. Previously this was – UI Designer > Flash Developer > Other platform Developer > Tester.

I think with the launch of AIR 2.0, Adobe would create a much bigger landmark. Reading about the new features made me and a lot of other people go "Wow". With new features such as – File monitoring, Volume monitoring, Asset caching, Native application support, online synching etc, AIR would certainly be a technology that needs no convincing.

For a more detailed list of AIR 2.0 features:

http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/files/presentations/fotb2009/advanced_desktop_development.pdf

It sometimes takes a lot to convince the client when he questions the choice of the development platform. It takes more convincing when you mention the fact that an extra layer needs to be installed on the user's machine to run the application. They don't really care about the development friendliness or the fact that we are using one or two technologies instead of using 4 or 5. A lot of times, we used to say that we are using Flex and keep the AIR deployment a secret. With the Installer doing the silent AIR runtime installation, nobody has to know. J

“Best practices” or just do your thing?

2009-10-24T23:41:00.001-07:00

The daily life of an IT professional is filled with "Best practices" and "conventions". Most IT organizations, these days, make sure that people follow what has been laid down strictly and have effective mechanisms to penalize bad and unorganized work. It is only when things are standardized that other people working on the project will understand what needs to be done. Some developers believe that "Free thinking" is lost when you follow things that strictly and coding becomes a "best practice" guide. Well, I used to believe that too in the beginning of my programming life, but, as the days went by, I strongly stood for these norms and conventions and even went far enough to lay down a system in my previous workplace.

We have "Best practices" for everything almost – design, development, UI building etc. I believe that "best practice" is a process by itself. It starts from design/layout and moves through development, testing and release. On many occasions, I have seen apps fail due to designs that don't follow these practices. To start with, Photoshop layers are not named or Flash libraries are cluttered with items that haven't been properly named. By the time the application releases, it would have changed from one thing to a totally different thing, far from what was initially visualized. I remember that we once had a hard time trying to change the UI (for adding a feature) of an application just before we hit beta. The structure of the design was such that it took us more time to actually figure out some of the layers and how things actually flowed. It is a simple best practice! But, most people blame "time" for doing a sloppy job, even if the final output is classy!

Here are some best practices that designers must follow:

Give proper names to Layers. If a layer contains a button, call it "Button" and not "Joe".
Make sure that the final version (that goes to development) has all unused elements deleted and items optimized.
Make sure that the design works in specified resolutions. Sometimes designers use a higher screen resolution while designing, whereas, the target screen resolution could be 1024x768. Here, the elements of the UI would look really large!
Use folders to organize page content or specific related content. This applies to Library/layers etc. For example, all elements used in the Homepage of a site could be in a folder called "Homepage".
Use Web palette colours where ever possible to make sure that colours are easily coded.
Name files properly and organize it into folders.
Use colours to darken/lighten text instead of using Layer alpha property (esp. in Photoshop).
"Usability" and "flexibility" of the interface need to be kept in mind while designing layouts.
Use system Fonts for dynamic text fields esp. For HTML pages.

..and the list goes on.

Best practices for developers:

Every programming language has coding conventions that should be followed.
Name your variables, functions, classes etc with sense and in context.
Use functions and make code more reusable.
Keep code in one place as far as possible.
Comment code properly with proper descriptions.
Avoid using "reserved" words.
Make sure you test the performance of your code and optimize it before you release stages.
Avoid those last minute "IF" fixes. These are mostly done before beta.
Create a proper structure – for your code, for the application as a whole.
Make sure your code can be easily extended, so that, if some additional features are requested, you can add functionality easily.

..this list goes on too!

Best practices for Managers/Leads:

Make sure your team exactly understands what they have to do. Hold meetings/discussions that would help this purpose.
Establish a proper workflow to enable not only easy management, but, a smooth functioning as well.
Make sure the people get enough time for everything. The client says something has to be done in x amount of time, make sure that your team can handle it. If you are able to convince the client for an extension, it is most ideal.
Establish a proper process to help monitor progress and workflow.
Layout a proper project plan, which needs to be communicated to the team.
Make sure all team members follow "best practices" and standards laid out.
Have a system in place which enables code/design checks to help make sure things are going as per plan.
Have a Management dashboard to tell you exactly how things are and communicate the good/bad with the team.
Make sure that team members have a proper work-life balance.
Showing your stress is a strict NO-NO.
Never expose you team members to clients or involve them in remarks during discussions with clients. This will be your downfall.

..this list could go on too!

There is not real definitive guide to all these things. Most come by practice and with experience.

30 years younger!

2009-09-20T06:32:00.001-07:00

I should have typed this entry up a few days (today-10 Sept. Days ago) ago, but, my mind was full of other things and felt really tired and worn out after some travelling and a good deal of work.

Looking back at my life and also looking at the way things are at the moment, I should say it has been good going so far! I haven't achieved the ultimate dream as yet, but, getting there slowly and surely. Of course, the dream kept changing throughout my life – from being a luxury bus driver to an automobile designer to a chartered accountant and what not! Along the way, I did achieve some small victories, but, the ultimate dream - remains!

A few days ago, I watched some kids play cricket on the streets. I wished I was a kid once again, but then, I thought of Math and Algebra..YAAA! that shook me back to reality..I have a well-balanced life, a supportive family, a lovely sweet wife, a job in a good company, a brat of a pooch, an instalment (Fiat) of my dream car and what not. There always remains that urge to do better and do things differently. It can't be controlled. The good things of it, I have in my agenda the rest goes into the grave. At 30, these things come and go. It is too early to start those funny habits of middle-age crisis. I hope I am always as normal (yup!) as I am.

Sometimes I wonder how different things would have been, if, I had really continued with my business studies and commerce. I guess I would have become the stock broker I wanted to be at that time. Successful at first, but, in pain during these hard times. I could have become a chartered accountant and done some serious pen-pushing, sitting in a cabin or one of those exclusive cubicles. I would have been damn serious about every penny and never got all those things I have now. Well, if I went ahead with my early dreams of becoming a bus driver or a vet, things would have been different too. The bottom-line always remains – Life, health and money. I started somewhere and ended up somewhere else. It has been quite an uphill climb to get where I am. To come in from a business background to computers and software is very tough. I guess I have achieved what many engineers haven't. It is a proud moment and I am really happy for it. Most people in the family and friendship circles think I've had it easy. Not so! I didn't really show it out.

As I climbed through the echelons, I discovered new passions and interests, but the focus has never been lost. I never wanted to be a guy in a cabin, travelling in a fancy car and getting a massive pay check. I've always wanted to remain with technology and people and not really dive to the depth of management.

As we grow up, we have those personal targets – get settled, get married, have kids..live it out! I wasn't really interested in getting married for reasons. All that changed when I met this girl (now my wife!). You could say that I was bowled over by her smile and her simplicity. Something in me said – "Dude, it is time to get married and live happily ever after!" I listened to that voice. It is now a year and Man! It's been awesome! We've both grown more responsible and stuff. Then, Mr. Snoops came in and things became more awesome. He has a big fan club and can become the president of the pooch club! And then came the Red Beast - the real Flash of Scarlet. Things now rock! We've had a few tough times, but, that a part of getting into the groove.

There’s a Catalyst in our midst

2009-08-07T23:32:00.001-07:00

Adobe Flash Catalyst has been a part of the news among the Adobe community for some time now. Community experts and evangelists seem to fit Catalyst into a role very easily. They always seem to echo the common thought, which is something like:

"We worked with people in the industry to understand workflow and have brought in a product that would help the designer<->developer workflow much better. At the end of it, the designer is happy that his design is carried on exactly as he had visualized it. The developer is happy that he can concentrate on development, than having to work some extra hours trying to get the design right..."

Speaking to a few people (ranging from designers, developers and managers) to collect their thoughts on including this new tool into their workflow, I felt that workflow problems would still exist to a large extent. Some common points of view are as follows:

New tool to learn: As easy as Catalyst maybe, it is still something that would need us to learn and train. It may take a day or a year, it is still time consuming.
Impact on working cost: We have to buy catalyst. I don't think the company will.
Already good enough workflow: In most companies, the designer gets his way even if he and the developer have to work longer hours, fight bigger battles. If the client wants it and if it HAS to be done according to the way things should be...well.. there is not much of a problem at the end of it.
Designer or developer or someone else? Who will need to know Catalyst? It is easy for the designer, but he has to create so many designs per day. The developer has his hands full with the actual coding and implementation. Should there be a new position created called – "UI Developer/Catalyst developer". What would he need to be good at? Will my company allow it?
Catalyst is cool. If my designs can become that much interactive even before the developer gets his hands on it, it is lovely! It is easy and quick.

Well, people say different things all the time. I think Catalyst will become an essential part of the workflow. From my experience as a designer, developer and a project manager, it brings in that missing connect that all of us feel. It saves a lot of time for the developer, who, not only can concentrate on his development work, he can also get a lot of the UI based (simpler) coding (like CSS) done automatically. Designers can reproduce his visualization. For the Project manager, life gets peaceful! Iteration loops can stay with the designer and only get to the next step when the design gets approved.

For the future of Catalyst, I think a project management component integration would be cool. You could have a Project -> UI Comps assigned to designers -> Versions -> Final approved version. The developer can do a check out of the final comp and integrate it into his project in Flash Builder or the Flash IDE. Time is saved as a result and people are happy!

Portable Apps..wow!

2009-07-20T10:41:00.001-07:00

So, your company's IT policies do not permit you to install software on your machine? No problem! Portable applications will save your day. There are a few applications you'd still want to have installed, but, they aren't available as "portable" yet. For example, Visual Studio.NET and Adobe Flex aren't. It is simple really, these are applications that can run from your pen drive and don't need any installation. Dump it into a folder and run them from there.

This site has loads of it: http://portableapps.com/

Currently, I am doing a project that requires PHP and MySQL. I couldn't get them installed on my machine because of the aforementioned reasons. I had to get it done, even if, it was really official work. So, I turned to Google and it led me to the most awesome solution – MoWes. Yup, a fully loaded webserver on stick! You have Apache, PHP 5, MySQL and you can keep adding! I almost fainted with amazement. Then, I found it a bit difficult to manage the database I had created. My next Search mission commenced and I found Portable HeidiSQL (http://www.heidisql.com/)..really powerful!

Portable apps aren't very different from the everyday apps. They sometimes have memory leaks, of course, we do understand it is due to the limitations. So, what can you carry on stick? OS? Office suites? Well?

Here's a list of useful stuff you could have:

Open Office Portable: http://www.portableapps.com
Webserver portable (Mowes): http://www.chsoftware.net/en/useware/mowes/mowes.htm
Portable Windows Live Messenger: http://www.techbeta.org/instant-messaging/portable-windows-live-messenger/
Portable VLC Player: http://www.portableapps.com
7-zip portable
Winamp lite
GIMP Portable
Firefox portable
Chrome portable
FoxIt Reader
Notepad++ portable

Kewl huh?

Creating multi-language “experiences”

2009-07-19T10:16:00.001-07:00

Working for a company that creates content for a worldwide audience, sometimes, makes it difficult to explain how a "dynamic publish once" application works. As Flashers, we use a lot of XML to store our content and use dynamic textfields to display them. I haven't really come across many developers using the built-in Strings panel. The Strings panel is quite useful by helping you create and manage multi-lingual content. You can create the content in one language and then use the Strings panel to add more languages. When you publish the application, a folder will be created containing one XML file per language. Isn't that great?

Manually setting up a multi-lingual project isn't very complicated. The general approach to setting up such a project is as follows:

Create your application root folder – For ex: MyLanguageApp
Create a folder called "data" or "content". This folder will contain your XML files.
Of course, you need the com/company/app path for your ActionScript package.
If the user is in-charge of selecting the language, it is not a complicated affair. Else, in your main FLA, you need to have a logic that helps you make that choice. I use a server-side script that returns the system language settings.
Embed fonts into your application for your dynamic textfields.

The first 4 points are easy. The final one can get a bit tricky, especially when we are talking about "brand fonts and styles". Advertising agencies select fonts to build a brand's identity, after taking into consideration a lot of brand character, strategy and not to forget...Client requirement. All brand fonts needn't support character sets belonging to some or most languages. To mimic characters for static content is easy, but, for content coming from an XML data source is tough! If the character is not supported, the user will just see "boxes" on screen. This is especially true for Asian language sets and some EMEA languages. Creating a campaign font from the scratch is time consuming, but, well worth it if your brand font doesn't support the characters!

Some tips to create multi-lingual application:

Organize the data into folders with file names reflecting languages. For example, use en-US for US English.
Try to select the language for the user by sniffing his IP Address. If the selection needs to be manual (by the user), make sure you have a page at the beginning to allow the user to do so.
Make sure you embed all fonts and characters.
Most importantly, use a formula to calculate the textfield's height and width depending on the content loaded.
Also check to see font size for your content. It is ideal to set it using ActionScript.
Make sure your application is fully loaded before the content is shown.

From my experience, Arial and certain fonts belonging to the Helvetica family are good fonts to have embedded for displaying multi-lingual content. I am currently experimenting with Segoe.

Leave me comments if you have any specific words of advice or experiences. It should form a good source for people involved in creating multi-lingual content.

Rich Data Visualization

2009-07-14T10:12:00.001-07:00

When we talk numbers, people just watch us with a "Aha!" or the "Aww!" face, depending on the situation. Even though, number crunching and accounting was my breakfast, during the college days, I never really considered it as a profession. There were times during my internship that I felt it hard to make a person understand that he is losing money to income tax and other taxes. Microsoft Excel came to the rescue soon and we could show stuff using charts and formulae that could calculate effects of the investments we make etc.

These days, we pickup real time data from all across the world, display it, perform calculations, distribute them to users living around the world over a wide variety of devices. These applications are not only graphically rich, they are also interactive. Data is displayed as innovatively as possible to make users understand, capture and react. Users can also simulate effects by just moving needles, turning a couple of knobs and type in a few values maybe to display the effective result. Sometimes, you really wonder if those "little men" inside the application exist!

Some really cool apps: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

Being a Flash Platform Developer, my world lies with Flash and Flex. Flex has rich features that can help your data visualization app look cool and powerful. Dashboard apps take a few minutes to create and with Flex 4 and Flash Builder it takes much lesser time. The amount of code you type in is minimal, thanks to the new data connection wizards.

Here's an article on it: http://www.insideria.com/2009/06/flex-4-data-wizards-make-life.html

From Graphical User Interface to Rich User Experience, things have come a long way. As a beginner, I used to hate those old formy looks of VB 5 & 6, and always tried some "skinning". The programming community I was interacting with back then used to mock my actions. Now, 3 of them are Flex developers and they swear by rich user experience! Who's the laughing now, boys? In fact, visualization components (such as the dial component and some charting stuff) I had created for various projects in the past have almost become obsolete. Papervision based visualization has found its way as cat amongst the pigeons.

The Componentized Website Project

2009-06-30T08:55:00.001-07:00

When I started out as a web designer/developer (was a bit of both!), the web was looked upon as something that provided information. A lot of my clients believed that information needs to be as detailed as in a book and ran into pages sometimes. At most times, the design itself needed to be changed into something very simple and straight forward. For example – A header-based/left-hand sided navigation and the rest of the page was left for the vast content. These sites were, what we called, as "Open end websites".

Things changed a bit when we got into what we called "Themed sites". It was something we borrowed in concept from 2Advanced. They had theme names for their websites, like, for example, the current website is called "Attractor". Clients were still pretty optimistic about the usage of Flash, so, it was all mainly HTML/PHP/CF/ASP. Design took the centre stage and everything had to fit into the design elements. Basically, we presented the clients with stunning designs and asked them to fit their content into it..or..else.. it would look crappy! It was a good success!

As Flash climbed the client charts, we started doing the entire site in Flash. Let us just say that my experiments made me what I am today!

In the beginning, I was laying out the pages in frames..like a banner and jumping to and fro on interaction. It was kind of stupid considering that Flash could, by then, load content from text files. My websites were very static. It was a money making idea. I could not only charge for creating the website, but also the actual updates and maintenance. Well, my brains were boxed and I was kinda fed up with the constant emails. So, I started making things more dynamic. Yeah, "prototypes" and "Smart MovieClips" to the rescue!

By the time AS 2.0 was in, my world revolved around "dynamic". APIs, Web 2.0, streaming, XML, web services..well.. these terms meant that I could create "Pods/Components" that displayed specific information on the website. The information could be pulled from feeds on the same server or other servers (with some help from .NET/PHP) and displayed using a custom textdisplay component, Images can be pulled from my Picasa or Flickr account, Tweets or Social networking info can be aggregated and displayed in other components. These components can be skinned and reused with ease. In fact, the client himself could do it with a bit of training on the XML config files.

Currently, my project is to create custom components for the website that are commonly used –

Text/Content area that would load and display rich textual content from external files.
Feed pods aggregating some feeds from other sites.
Links component that will display links of friends etc
Social Networking pods for Facebook, Twitter and MySpace(?) displaying the latest feeds from the platforms
Photo Gallery component can be configured for either using public streams such as Picasa or Flickr, or, display from a custom XML based feed.
Contact component that will contain text based information, contact form and/or "Connect with me" links to directly open IM windows.
Last but not the least the UX container component that will load the backgrounds and other UX elements.

These components can be enabled or disabled from a "Website Template Configuration" file. Nah! It won't be something that people will have to do editing code chunks or XML tags. It can all be done from the admin console with a few clicks. The engine will take care of the rest.

Kewl, huh? So, how far is this Project gone? Well, parts of it are already under development. The Admin side is a whole huge chunk! L

Installing PHP on IIS 7.0?

2009-06-08T10:36:00.001-07:00

Installing PHP on IIS 7.0 (Vista) for the first time? It is quite a rollercoaster ride. I struggled for about 30 minutes and finally got around to solving it after quite a bit of googling around. Here's the easy way then:

Download and extract the latest Windows ZIP package from: http://www.php.net/downloads.php. Don't download the installer.
Extract the contents of the zip file to your web root folder. It would be something like C:\inetpub\wwwroot\PHP for example.
Now, first rename the php.ini –recommended file to php.ini
Open the php.ini file to edit
Uncomment:

fastcgi.impersonate
cgi.fix_pathinfo
cgi.force_redirect
open_basedir – Put the physical php application path here withing double quotation marks. For example – "C:\intepub\wwwroot\php"

Install Hotfix from: http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/0/c/30ce6281-59e5-4315-9d9f-0a14bec95bbf/Windows6.0-KB954946-x86.msu. You will be prompted for a restart at the end.
Once the machine is back after the restart, open the IIS Manager (type inetmgr in your Start > Run). With the Home location selected, click on Handler Mappings.
If FastCGIModule is already present, remove and once again click on Add Module Mapping and enter the following:
Request Path: *.php
Module: Select FastCGIModule (if this is not present follow the steps given in point 9 to follow)
Executable: click the button with the "..." to browse to the location of your PHP app path – for example, "C:\intepub\wwwroot\PHP" and select the PHP-CGI.exe file
Name: PHPViaFastCGI
If the FastCGIModule is not present in the Module drop down, follow these steps:
1) Go into "Modules" dialogue at the Home location,
2) Choose the "Configure Native Modules" option on the right pane,
3) Choose "Register" on the next window, and
4) Insert "FastCgiModule" in the Name textbox and "%WINDIR%\system32\inetsrv\iisfcgi.dll" (Replace %WINDIR% with your Windows path. For example C:\Windows). Easier is to use the navigation button to navigate and select the file mentioned above.

Once these 9 steps are done, create a php file to check if it works. It should.. otherwise there must be something else that has gone nuts! J

Now, people who know me must be asking the big question – "Arun? PHP? Not .NET? What happened???" Well! Let us just say that it was a fortunate turn of events that occurred. J

Sony Ericsson W705 - review

2009-05-30T04:26:00.001-07:00

Ok, so that is the way the SE W705 looks. I wanted a red one, but, couldn't get my hands on one due to lack of stock, hence, I settled for the silver. Later on, when I saw the red model, I knew I had made a good choice of colours. I have been having the phone for about 2 months now and that is a good and long enough time to really get into the phone and write a review about it. So here goes.

Music in us:

The phone is another of SE's walkman offerings. Being a fan of good bass, I must say that the sound quality is really good! The in-ear earphones cancel the outside din to give you a good music experience. Couple that with a 4GB M2 card that comes along with it, you are ready for your long walks, runs, jogs or whatever! I still have about a gig free on the card in spite of having a lot of songs on it. That's enough about the walkman! The phone also comes with a list of other jaw-dropping features. You can organize and manage your music using Bluetooth, the data cable of simply pull out the M2 card push it into your card reader and dump songs onto it. I prefer the data-cable transfer. I must say that the transfer has become fast compared to yester years. I used to have the W300 previously and software transfer sucked on it.

Interesting Features:

Connectivity: 3G HSPA Connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Data cable, GPRS class 10

Screen: 2.4" QVGA

Misc: Google Maps, Track ID, Games (with shake-control), NetFront browser, Walk Mate, RSS reader, YouTube, Video Call

Camera: 3.2 MP with LED flash

Slider panel for keyboard

I must add that it is one of the cheapest phones with WiFi. I used to have an ASUS P527 Smartphone, meaning to say, I don't really regret giving it away.

Browsing on the phone using the NetFront browser that is built-in is easy and quick. With a big screen, you can pretty much do most usual stuff. I use my GPRS a lot and haven't really had any issues. I use the Email messaging to send/receive my personal email. This is an old feature and I guess the server handshake has improved over the period too. Sending emails is faster and doesn't get stuck like the old times.

I love Walk Mate and wish it had some other features I require. I walk a lot and it helps me measure and match up to the number of steps I take each day. I wish it showed stuff like calories burnt or have a facility to upload to a server where I can keep records.

The RSS reader has been around for quite a while. I really have not much to say. Its a good feature if you are an RSS person!

YouTube app is useful on those journeys that you get bored.

I didn't buy the phone seeing the camera. I already have a Sony DSLR. I must say that I am not a big fan of the built in camera. SE's have had better cameras. The picture quality is quite dull and even daylight photos aren't that great. Once you take a pic, you can send it out to people via the usual modes and you can also send it to your MySpace or Picasa. I haven't been able to send any pics to my Picasa. Apparently, it sends it out as a picture message. Pictures can also be Geo tagged. Video mode is ok. You can upload your videos to YouTube.

Performance:

The phone hasn't slowed down, despite, the memory fills. It gives about 4 hrs of talktime on 3G and over 10hrs on GSM networks. In more layman's terms, I need to charge the phone only every 2 days according to my usage. I call less and music more. J It is very reliable, functional and has a very good performance.

Conclusion:

Like I said, it is a good buy for its features and cost. It has no GPS, touch screen or smartphone stuff, but, it delivers on a lot of other fronts. It has a sturdy stylish brushed silver body which takes a lot of falls. It has fallen twice from my hands already and doesn't have a scratch. It has a typical SE user-friendly interface. Good music player and awesome connectivity options. So, what are you waiting for?

Flowers don't matter, perspective matters..Think about it!

2009-05-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Being in the interactive advertising space throws up a lot of stuff - good, bad and the ugly. When you talk 100% compatibility to everything, it broadens everything, including your work timing and waistlines!

Some of the stuff that are valid:
1. Banners usually use a max of flash 6 and 7, when the real world is playing with flash player 10. While Adobe's charts at: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html show high penetration stats for FP 7 and above, it seems like a dead day making banner for lower versions than 7 atleast. Stuff like PaperVision and Away3D are not really happening stuff here.

2. HTML pages need to be compatible to web standards and compatible to all browsers - IE, FF, Safari.. u name it. This is a good thing! No complaints!

3. Emailers don't take that much of credit! We have had a lot of trouble fixing up emailers. Different email clients have put us in tight spots. Lotus Notes is the biggest one! If you got it all right on everything else, you'd still end up putting in those late hours trying to fix a table alignment issue for Lotus Notes 6.5 or 7. Just importing the HTML page into Lotus Notes gives different results to blasting the emailer.

4. "Innovation" is a big word. If you could innovate in a limited space, you'd still have problems putting things through the grind. Things are usually more complicated than just putting stuff into slides and taking a client through them without having to say too many things at the same time.

..more to come!

Idea? Or Standards?

2009-04-27T09:00:00.001-07:00

As most people who love the web as a developer/designer, I too started my days creating websites in good old HTML. And as most people, I used Microsoft FrontPage at first and then moved on to Adobe (Macromedia then) Dreamweaver and then.. Notepad. My progression from a frame based layout to a more complex layout was quite quick, I must add. The process was simple – the designer created what he called as his "masterpiece" idea. As "people in arms" we HTML-ized the layout and then had to test it out on the "then famous" web browsers – Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Opera. As the testing went on, we felt like we should have been martians or something. They should be far more advanced and didn't need 'em webpages! J Errors popped up one by one and we had to fix them all before the client saw it on his set of browsers. BG images were a no show on Netscape. DIVs and CSS were a mess.

1994 came along and we had the W3 Standards. Clients sent their specifications, now, with a line added – "Should follow W3 Standards". Now, that was sweet, huh? Between all the work, we now had to learn standards and implement them! The designers held up their red flags saying it was a chore to design according to standards and added the most used line – "Design is about idea and creativity. It doesn't follow any standards". So, what followed was a big battle. What they designed, we had to..yeah.. had to bring in the standards. I have nothing against the standards. Standardization is good. Its just that battles rage long and hard. Luckily for me, I wasn't hurt.. I escaped to what I call the "silver lining" of my life – Flash. Really, my interest in Flash wasn't to have an escape route. I got interested in the interactivity and moved in.

It is 2009 and the battle seems to be still raging on. Out of some 30 web designers I know, about 20 still believe in "creative freedom". Designing web 2.0 websites isn't their daily lollipop and making them understand the whole thing is difficult. The question is – Why should the "design" be different from what they do to make it compliant to standards? Isn't that really the job of the HTML guys? Well, I think both people have a role to play here. Visualization should be open to standards and the HTML guys should follow standards to make sure everything fits and validated. Designs should go far away from use of the "invalids" - Nested tables, Image maps and usability issues. Many designs I see around me still force the usage of these.

In many ways Flash breaks a lot of the rules. You start with a clean slate and then draw up your imagination. I had always wanted to build a circular webpage layout back in the 90s and I did that using Flash! You really don't have to bother about serious browser incompatibility issues and spend lots of time in testing across a lot of variables. Your idea is safe and standards go almost to hell.. until.. a person like me shows up and says – name those layers and write meaningful code (variable names, function names etc.). It is another doggy day and you still have to chase the tail!

The Day of the Fool!

2009-04-01T07:43:00.001-07:00

Every calendar year, this day makes us all happy – being a part of pranks galore. It has become a trend these days to sing the B'day song for people picked randomly. I waited for Google to open their File > New > ... Google has been using the day to launch serious products! Seriously! ;-)

In 2000, it was "MentalPlex" (http://www.google.com/mentalplex/). I also recollect a fictitious drink (forgot its name though).The drink was supposed to increase a person's intelligence. In 2K7, it was the Google Paper. They would print out emails and send them via traditional post! One can never forget the Toilet ISP. It was the whackiest concept ever! Last year it was the funny way to view YouTube, where you have to turn your monitor upside down and tilt your head upside down and then move to Australia..wierd humor! I also remember Orkut had someother name given to it (yup! Forgot the name). I heard that the YouTube page was upside-down for a while, though it didn't check out for me. Also in the news was CADIE - Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity. Some of CADIE's new features include auto-replying to emails received in your Gmail account, add red-eye to your pix on Picasa and the funnier Brain Search for your mobile.

It was good that the economic slowdown didn't spoil people's sense of humor. Even the fear of the prowling Conficker worm didn't spoil things for the techie. The worm woke up in Asia according to reports on cnet news.

Just flow?

2009-03-05T09:04:00.001-08:00

It was sometime during the year 2005, I think, I attended this seminar on "Workflow Management and the Effective Process Management". The person who was making the presentation was a famous management guru with loads of experience. Back then, I thought that all this was just some mumbo-jumbo and fit enough just to be in a book. In the next few years, I was in-charge of managing teams and establishing workflows. Not really aware of it, I was actually following a lot of what the man had talked about. I had to improvise a bit, but there is always something that comes with the strings attached.

In my life, I have led teams that consist of designers, developers and test engineers. Many of whom have bigger degrees and many years of experience. We've always had a mix of technologies and skill sets – newbies, seniors, idle-bugs etc. At first, I tried to be the "No process man". I failed miserably! With experience came the art of getting it all right.

In my job (and most others), designer <-> developer workflow is a very important thing. It is becoming more and more important to have an easy and effective workflow with the era of richness moving really fast and becoming the order of the day. Project turn-around times are becoming lesser too. If your workflow is not efficient, deliverables are delayed and lot of problems are caused. A proper flow can be established when all sets of people involved first understand their portions of the work to be done. In my experience, I have had various hurdles.

When the project is more "design based" with a minimum team of artists/designers, it becomes more difficult to establish a process and method. Designers want more time to ideate, visualize, layout and finalize. They don't want to have time constraints on any of these, especially, if their manager is a development guy! Mostly they prefer individual contribution and don't like working that much in a team..rightfully so, coz many have told me that ideas differ and final execution doesn't turn out as visualized if the entire designer's workflow is pushed through to other designers also.
If it s a totally developer oriented job, there occurs a lot of arguments in code models especially. Developers easily fit into workflows established.
The "mix" is getting into some soup! There is always the – "that design and this way" argument. There is also the more famous – "At the end we become the slave to the grind." It is often true that as the project gets well along the way, designers finish early and developers take a lot of stress and burden. This builds a bit of envy, which also affects smooth functioning.

While designing stunning and rich exteriors is the designers' job, making things rock in the interiors is the developers'. It is not just process and/or mentality that governs a good workflow, it is also the tools that have an equal say in matters. Collaboration, interoperability, familiar user-friendly GUI, a bit of backward compatibility..all these are important features. Both my favourite companies (Adobe and MS) have come a long way in this regard, making software more along these lines of efficiency. Would there be a day when the creative editor approves a design and does a File > Save as > Banner from a print document? The CS4 suite is really close to it, with interoperable formats and familiar environments, it allows us to remove some of the old barriers and be more efficient and quick. Whether it is transitioning from a prototype to a widget or creating a rich application from a layout created, the CS4 suite has all that we need and can use. PhotoShop, Flash, Fireworks, Flex..and now Catalyst all work together!

Using Adobe Flash Catalyst, designers can create the GUI (or the "user experience" as we now call it!). They can import PSD, AI or PNGs and create the GUIs with basic interactivity (transitions, style changes etc). The file is saved as FXG. The FXG opened by the developer in Flex Builder. He does a "code merge" and adds functionality. Changes in design are again "code merged".

Traditionally, most developers are used to creating a new document and adding the design elements manually into a new Flash document or a new MXML file. We often need something in a particular way, other than, what the designer has designed. Eventhough we don't "redesign" anything ourselves and leave that to the designer, it causes a clash sometimes and often the "I am a designer, you just code" T-shirt is worn! A good process must have all this laid in and made a pact. Design is made according to a plan, with some design standards and best practices. It should make people work easier with each other. The same goes for developers too. Standards, patterns and best practices is the name of the game.

"Build once, deploy on whatever" is almost a reality. There used to be a clear classification when I started as a programmer – "Desktop Application Developer" and "Web Developer". The Flash Platform and platforms like dotnet really bridge a lot of the gaps. It is going to be a really awesome future! Bring it on!

Join RIASpace!

2009-02-21T01:03:00.001-08:00

Some of us have set up an Adobe User Group called "RIASpace". The intention of setting up this User Group is to bring the "Rich people" together! Nah, not "rich" money-wise, but, "rich" as in "Rich Internet Application" and "Rich Internet Advertising". Share views, knowledge and whatever you would like in this Space. You could be a designer, developer or webpage specialists or even one of those "in-betweens" like me. Join RIASpace now!

URL: http://groups.adobe.com/groups/3e182b1a99/summary

Most of us in typical traditional advertising claim that we are not as "big" a developer as the regular developer. With the evolving advertising industry and stress on user involvement in this industry, I am sure things will change.. they are already! This is also the reason, we would be stressing a bit more on "Rich Advertising" and "effective user experience". If you have anything to share in this regard, please feel free to share.

As far as regular application development goes, we'd be talking about that too. So, anything in this regard is welcome too.

Currently, the User Group consists of designers, developers, project managers and HTML specialists. Some familiar with programming and others not so much into it. Hence, please keep your presentations and words a little less "jargonistic".

Don’t fear! The APIMan is here!

2009-02-11T07:59:00.001-08:00

Naah! Don't worry! You won't see one of those super-hero people here. They are just a figment of imagination. So, the underwears will stay inside for the moment. Getting to the topic, I am really excited about this widget I am making using Flex 3 and AIR. The keyword is "API" here and I am using about 3 or 4 of them...exciting stuff. The project is codenamed as "Flare" and should be live in a couple of weeks, I guess.

I have been fiddling around with APIs only for about a year now. The first API I touched was the Flickr API and I really couldn't get with things the first time. As things took shape, cracking those APIs and extracting application functionality with them became easier. GData API was the next in queue, particularly the Maps API for a geo-coding enabled project. The project didn't take off due to some funding issues and it didn't see the daylight. That project, though, was the one that really got me into AIR. I still reuse code libraries I had developed for that project in various others. It is not the perfect example, but it works that spark in your head.

I have learnt quite a few things about building AIR applications. Here's some:

Make your application "configurable" or "customizable" by the user. This can be from a simple Theme setting to a more complex functionality-based setting.
It is useful to maintain the configuration file as an XML file. It is not only easier for us, as developers, but, its kinda interesting for the user too.
Use the built-in features and APIs rather than trying something totally different and hitting that road block. Like, for example, use SQLLite where needed rather than trying t use SQL Server.
Check your build for bugs and performance issues. Use the "Profiler" built into Flex builder to check for performance issues.
If you are minimizing to the system tray, use a right-click context menu to bring back the application. Commands like "Open" and "Exit" bring out a lot of user-friendliness.
If you are creating a transparent app, make sure it is draggable and has a "mimimize" and "close" button. Once again, it is user-friendly!
Don't just package the app and release it for download as one would do for a simple EXE. Create an install badge.
Make sure you use proper code to look for locally stored files in Application Paths and not hard code it.
You can add auto-update features to make sure your app is up-to-date.

Well, these are just some of them. There are more and a lot of it take their place with practice.

If you haven't tried AIR out, its time to Feel the AIR!

2 to 3!

2009-01-31T01:49:00.001-08:00

I was reading this blog entry on AS 2 to AS 3 migration @ WarmForestFlash blog a little earlier today and the thought has been floating in my mind for a long time. I migrated to AS 3.0 when AS 3.0 came into the world. I fought my battles and won the wars and I think it is well worth it. I've aired my opinions about the migration on various occasions too. A few of my friends still stick to AS 2.0, not because of the small learning curve, but, they are held by strict project coding platform rules setup in their companies. As I have experienced too, most of these "Coding platforms" have been developed in circa "those triple digit years". Those who have some authority on questioning higher level people have found the common answer – "The code has been developed over a lot of experience and has been tested to zero-error the current stage. We don't have the time to work on a new platform for this. Just do your work as is." I have worked on projects that had really primitive levels of coding and technology. The truth is, we can't really blame anyone for stepping backward or remaining there.

Recently, I was developing this simple widget for a client. To me, the obvious choice was using Flex 3 and AIR. After some discussions, had to realign my thoughts and use Flash and a projector application. I have used mProjector, Screenweaver and Zinc before, but, the version I had access to was very old. I had to look back a bit and hit the "Use AS 2.0" button. I began the coding and then couldn't really make much progress. My mind was shifting me to AS 3.0 – EventListeners, XML DOM models etc. In short, Resistance was futile. One of my buds had Zinc 3.0 on his machine and I smiled and delivered. "Once you have enjoyed the power of being a king, you can't really give up".

I've always loved technology and coding. I sleep well when I have written atleast 10 lines of code, especially AS (Call me NUTS! ). When I migrated from AS 1.0 to AS 2.0, it was tough. The concept of OOP was a bit hard for me, since, I didn't come from a computing background. The learning curve was really steep! AS 2.0 to AS 3.0 is a lot easier. I have told this a lot of times during my discussions – its only when you do, you learn. When you learn, you enjoy it. AS 3.0 gave me the pleasure I sought. I hit some rough patches and still hit many, but I try and overcome them. You don't really need to migrate official work to the newer. Learn as a personal thing. To those who want to migrate, here are a few tips:

Get to know the new Event model. Keep the onReleases(), onPress() etc in the locker.
Remove the "_" from object properties. _apha will be alpha for the record.
UI components are more thrilling. Get to know them
XML is also easier to parse and consume.
Get used to the new Packages. Know what lies in which package.
Check this page out: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/migration.html

Happy learning!

Small Concept, Big Movie! Yeah, it’s the movie review time!

2009-01-05T08:42:00.001-08:00

Going a little off topic, I am going to review a movie that I saw. It was a good break from all the learning.

The Movie? Ghajini. If you haven't seen the movie, I am putting in a spoiler..hehehe. The movie starts off with a medical lecture. Jiah Khan gets introduced into the movie as a simple eager medical student. Well, later on, the "simple" will change to "pest". Jiah Khan wants to work on the "Aamir Khan Project" as she chances upon the criminal case file in a common medical library. Of course, now, the star is introduced in a WHAM! BAM manner. It was a great idea bringing in the shadow first and then the actor. The brain surgery seemed to have healed well on Aamir Khan's head! So, Aamir Khan has Short-term memory loss. He can remember things for 15 mins. So he has this room full of really big collection of clues which would lead him to his girlfriend's killer. All over the room, he has left these little post-its which tell him what he needs to do and stuff. It didn't stop with the post-its though, he needed to be given a chance to show the 1...2....3...4...5........8 packs, so, he had these things – phone numbers, messages written on his body. In big bold, he had "Kalpana was killed" around his collar bone. Kalpana? Anyone? Do I know her? Yeah I do..well..selective short memory loss?

Moving on in the story and cutting out on some action, there is this really short shirted muscular cop who traces through clues and finally comes to Aamir Khan's house to confront him, even if, he was to run with the city bus to catch up and get in. If the hero was caught, the movie wouldn't have taken 3 hrs almost to finish, so to give people their money's worth, the cop bashes up the hero and..and..looks around to find a diary. Am I getting a flashback here? Yup! We are taken backwards in time to get to know the man's life. So Aamir Khan is a really high-flying business man – Sanjay Singhania...only..no one really knows him. He can easily pass of as a boy next door in this armanis and rolex..and.. Superman had to wear you know what outside to keep his identity a secret! The whole affair is revealed. Asin (the heroin) is a small time actress and let us leave it at that.

The cop comes to the last page – 31^st Dec 2005 with the echoing question – "Do u love me?" well, thats is the question Aamir asks Asin in the flashback and Asin is to give him the reply the next day. Aamir wakes up from all the bashing and bashes up the cop! Strike one! Do we have a surprise waiting? Yeah we do! Remember the medical student? She too comes to Aamir Khan's place. Now comes the strangest thing in the movie. The cop tells her that Aamir Khan is a killer and starts to run away leaving the girl and Aamir behind. Luckily, the cop is the bigger bait and Aamir decided to chase him. Coward cop is run over by city bus.

Aamir finds a programme invitation among some goons he beats up. It is an invitation to a college programme that is "chief guested" by..by.. TADADAAAAA.. the Villian..the one and only..Ghajiniiiiiiiii. The Polaroid cam comes to use again. Aamir takes a clean shot of the man. Oh yeah! The Polaroid cam. This is a tool he uses to take the pics of things (and people) he wants to remember. Jiah is once again brought in to throw some gas into the inferno. She vists the villain to tell him of Aamir Khan's intentions.

Are you still wondering what happened on the 1^st January 2006? Did Asin say "yes"? Who is going to read the 2006 diary? Yeah, its Jiah once again. She had taken the diaries home to read as a bedtime story, putting it in a cupboard to read later. Now, that she remembered that, it was time to read. We get back into the flashback watching things that happened wayback...rhymes! Asin says "Yes"..no surprises there!

Cutting out a lot of things in between, we go to the part where Jiah is investigating what exactly happened to Asin and Aamir. The diary doesn't talk about that! So, on her trip to Goa for a shoot, Asin rescues a group of girls taken by the goons of Mr. Ghajini to be sold. Heroine's life! Hmm. There is this interesting character in a lady cop who calls Asin to come to the hospital where the kids are recovering. She says that 2 kids are missing and Asin has to come immediately to identify them and that there is a big person's hand in the crime. This raises the question – Cops are there to protect people and investigate things right? I scratch my head on that!

Goons angered they take revenge and Asin is killed. Aamir is also bashed on the head with an iron thingy and thats how he gets to this state. This leaves us with some questions:

Big business man bashed up and messed up in the head. Strangely the police case isn't famous or heard of. Are our media so bad?
Do sick people live alone? I mean you forget things in 15mins and you have no one to take care of you?
"Revenge" is the most remembered word?

The storyline was kinda weak and doesn't really stand a chance to some logic. But, then again, movies aren't mathematic equations. It is the entertainment value that counts. Music is really good – typical AR Rahman stuff. Apart from Behka, Kaise tujhe and Ghuzarish, the rest of the songs aren't really catchy. Aamir Khan does the usual Khan thing. Good actor delivering his best! Asin was natural, but, the rest of them were kinda mediocre and didn't seem to support the main story.

This goes on to say - Buy the DVD and see it.

Another year...so wat?

2008-12-31T21:38:00.001-08:00

It is Jan 1, 2009! Happy New Year everybody!

By now, the new year celebrations are almost over. Some 25% of the people are at work punching on their keypads cursing their boss' for making them work today, another 10-15% of the people are still asleep after the party, some 3-5% of the people are thinking that they will change this year and make 2009 really count as a big year for themselves, around 10% of the people are busy doing things they love and spending time with the family and finally there are 10% of the mass who, like me, think "It is another year..so?"

I will be a year older, may sit at the same seat talking about the same kind of things, it will be the same even this year. Nothing much is going to change. People will still fight, kill and the tolerance levels will still decline. People will still talk about events that terrorize and keep us worried. What is really there to celebrate? "New Year Resolutions" is the most over-rated, hyped phrase, says Jim..and Jim is right!

The above paragraphs of this post might make you think I am a total loser, huh? Well, I am not. I live a happy and successful life with my family. It is just that the whole "New year buzz" has got me thinking a bit. A lot of it seems so artificial to me.

2009-01-01 is a great day to reflect upon the past and make changes to make today better. I remember a saying – "You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future."

AIR, Water and Fire!

2008-12-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

As the world keeps turning, people are getting poorer and the application world is getting richer! The Economic depression is certainly getting messier by the day. Adobe cut about 600 jobs, Google cut some jobs too and looks like that is going to continue for a longtime. Companies that were once in the forefront of business development are stepping careful. A lot of people I know don't know where they are headed. Well, I do hope things get better now than never!
Eventhough I couldn't attend Adobe MAX 2008, due to the obvious cost factor, I made sure that I stayed up with the latest news! "Thermo" finally got its real name - "Flash Catalyst" and the "Flash Platform" was announced! I know I am quite late in blogging about it, but, I am not covering the MAX :)
"Rich Applications" (not just the web!) always interested me. I was really happy when those old "formy" looks were thrown out of the window. "UI" gave way to "UX" and the world is a better place to live. When colour was introduced, application power wasn't lost..infact.. apps became more powerful. We have the best of both worlds - a fast growing powerful web and a richer more functional desktop. I started my professional life as a designer and thought Flash was just a "Splash screen" menace. Well, those were the days of the dial-up! Within a couple of months, I was swearing by Flash (Flash 4 then)! It never crossed my mind, back then, that Flash would become a whole platform - the web, the mobile, the desktop..world domination?!?? ;-) Today, my world revolves around Flash, Flex and AIR.
Eventhough I am only developing my 2nd application in AIR, I've grown to love it. My first app was an MP3 player. I am not really proud of the player, but, its my "Hello World" app! The app (more of a utility) that I am working on currently is called "Fetch". In a nutshell, its a sort of a Favourites Bar which syncs with your desktop, del.icio.us and google bookmarks. It is a simple application to make. I just love working with APIs. My next app is a more complicated one - a Project Management Tool to me and my colleagues with our day-to-day work. Its more of a personal project that I am still in the process of creating specifications and project flow. Theres a lot of studying before that, since, this is sort of custom built. Interesting times ahead!

Flash CS4 - Yet another review.. its different!

2008-12-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

Yeah, this is yet another review of Flash CS4, but, its different! Most reviews I came across talked about the same things - kinematics, new UI, 3D, Share my Screen feature, Object-based animation, the all new and improved font rendering engine etc. All these are fine and really..truly amazing and awesome. But, there are those little things that haven't been discussed about much. I just thought I'd put them together. So, here goes..
INSTALLATION: Ok, so, the first thing one notice's is the installer. Installing 888MB worth of an application takes longer than I expected. ON my Vaio, it took nearly 45mins. I am not sure why, though. Also, the 2 file
installation setup is kinda strange. GUI: The new interface I thought was kewl. The panels are still a bit.."grumpy". Personally, I would have preferred the Properties panel at the bottom. Maybe because I am used to it. So, I docked the panel at the bottom. As is the case usually, I clicked the panel header and the panel didn't open. It still sat there collapsed. I tried pulling it up, which, didnt help either. After a few tries, I gave up and docked the panel back to the right-side. 2 days later, I got an idea and tried that out - I expanded the Properties panel on the right-side, undocked it and docked it to the bottom. This time, it worked! The next time I started up Flash..the panel
wouldn't expand. So, I tried the same thing dock to side, expand, dock to bottom, click to expand.. it didn't work. I decided to leave it on the side. The thing is.. usually.. lets say, for expample, I want to change font for 5 static text. I could have the Properties Panel expanded and select each text to change font. Now, if I had to do that, the Properties Panel would collapse each time a textfield loses focus and I need to re-expand the Properties Panel to select the font...takes a minute more now, huh?I love the new breadcrumbs. They are movable and really kewl to move them around in order of preference.
COMMON LIBRARY: This was something that disappeared for about 3 versions of Flash. Now, its back and with lots more. It used to be a pain to search for sound effects, now, thanks to Adobe, we have lots of them! Thats awesome!
COMPONENTS: When the V3 components were introduced, I really thought they gave added a lot of value to the interface. Skinning was really easy! I am still wondering why useful data components like Webservice component and the XML Connector component didnt make a comeback... in a different avatar maybe. Ofcourse, clever developers would make an XMLParserClass and keep it in the code library for maximum reuse :).
CREATE NEW SYMBOL: Did you know that the "Create new Symbol" (comes up when you Insert>New Symbol) window has undergone a makeover? Well, it has..and its something really good. On Flash CS4, you get to select the symbol type from a combobox, which replaces the radio buttons. The panel also includes a link that you can click on to choose the Library folder into which you would like to put the symbol. Its something I wished for (in my mind and heart..not in the official wishlist). Most designers and some developers don't take the time to organize the library. Also, you now have the "Enable guides for 9-scaling" option right below this symbol folder link and the "..sharing" options make it into a "Sharing" panel and the "Linkage" panel has been organized a bit differently. The "Export.." options have come above the "Identifier", "Class" and "Base class" fields. Another thing.. remember your tutor used to always say - select the "Export in first frame" option...? thats now.. "Export in frame 1".
THE INSERT MENU: Have you noticed some of the items disappear from the INSERT menu? Well.. check it out, Yo! "Timeline effects" have gone poof! They have been ravamped to the MOTION PRESETS panel. Simple animation is a mouse clicks away! No spending time on tweening bouncing ball! Ok, so now, the INSERT menu has the "Tweens" - Motion, shape and classic tween.
DOUBLE-CLICK ON THE FPS AREA IN THE TIMELINE TO GET DOCUMENT PROPERTIES WINDOW: If you double-click now, you end up going into the edit mode to change the FPS. You would now have to select the stage and click the Properties Panel. More clicks per second.
TRANSFORM PANEL: The famous Transform panel now has the 3D rotation stuff added. For precise X, Y and Z's..contact the Transform panel.
SEARCH: Thats an awesome feature! You can search the document and you also have a search in the Library! If those symbols are not named "sssss_" or "xyzzzztween" etc.. you can search them!
COPY FONT NAME FOR ACTIONSCRIPT: You didnt notice that in the Commands menu? Go, take a look! I don't know if this is a great feature. Clicking on it would copy the font name to your clipboard..and.. you can
paste it just about anywhere. Its the same as copying the font name from the Properties panel. Thats some of it. I haven't come across more. When do, I shall update the list right here!
To sum up, would I pay some $699 to buy Flash CS4? As a developer? As a budding animator?... I dont know. Maybe I could still use cheaper 3rd party tools.. PaperVision 3D? Hmmm. I was just taking a sort of an opinion poll among my friends and colleagues the other day we saw the demo. This is the majority feeling! Whatever it is.. I still love Flash and would still buy it when I collect enough money! :(

Adventures of a "Click Here" button

2008-11-25T07:53:00.000-08:00

Most people in the advertising world would know what feedback does to an ad. It makes the ad more innovative and intuitive (to be read as "horrible"). We interviewed a "Click Here" button on a 300x250 pixel banner ad recently and the it had lot to tell. The interview had just one question (since it was a loooooooong answer, we had to cut it short). We asked the button:

Q: Hey "Click here"! How's life?
Ans: Sucks big time, man! I don't know what it is to be ME anymore. My life started out quite well in the hands of a pretty good artist. He gave me great shades, a splendid build, bold colours and my name - "Click Here" (in sentence case).Things looked good when I went into my first day on a grey-ish banner. We blended well in greyness and everything seemed... cool! I was basking in my aura, when I was picked up in the banner and whizzed off through the information superhighway to several mailboxes across the world. I saw light as my parent was woken up and played to the final frame, where "yours truly" sat looking handsome! The human (who looked blurry eyed and drunk, by the way) looked at me and growled. He uttered something like - "This button looks tacky..and..umm.. out-of-place. It must be changed." My rectangles and gradients grew heavy as I was shut off. I didn't know what happened till...this other guy saw me- A very elderly British man, I guess. He commented - "The banner is ok.The button is ok too, but, it needs some improvement..." He went on for an hour almost and kept replaying my dad a hundred times, till, my colours spun and I felt ooozie!

In a nutshell, out of the 20-30 people who saw me, there was just a single lady who kinda liked me. The rest had the same comment - "tacky, needs brighter colours, needs improvement...blah blah blah.." After about 3 days of circling around, I was taken back to the good artist who created me. Once again, my life was opened, ready to be changed...and.. PhotoShop is a lovely tool!

The good artist was kinda angry at all the feedback he got..or.. he had a tough life. He choked me with lots of colours and roughened me up with some really surreal texture. My new "look" had to be looked at again..more seriously. He poked at me with those brushes and pens and pencils..you name it! Cut a bit off me and added new bits. I became shiny for a minute and for the next minute I was all messed up. After about an hour of "button-handling", he called another person to stare at me and do more violent things. For about 2 minutes everything was almost transparent about me. The two people quenched their artistic thirst and took me places showing me off. Well, the new look (I am not even going to start on it!) was accepted by the "internals" they said. Personally, I think the "new look" was awful, terrible, not even close to being a real button! My body had lost its colour and my name was displayed boldly - "CLICK HERE" (this time it was all in uppercase) Once more I made my way through the information super highway and found the same kind of snarls and grunts and a hoard of complaints. Aren't people ever satisfied? But, this time it was a new ball game. This time it was all about rearrangement. They thought things didn't "fit in" or was "not in place". DUHHH!

Here we go again! this time, I wasn't going to get the Photoshop treatment. It was going to be the whole thing. Dad was changing colours, the textmates were moved and I was being hassled. In 5 minutes, my location was changed between frames 1 and 250!!! 15 seconds of relocation! Finally, I was released..or..atleast I thought. A copywiter came up with "new copy". He wanted to fit in some 5 new lines in the frame that I lived. Between my X and Ys, I couldn't calculate how it could happen! I was also renamed from simple old "Click Here" to "More details", "Find out how", "Go", "Learn more"...the circus started again...

NOTE: Sorry, but this interview had to stop coz someone just deleted the button!

Going forward with Backward compatibility

2008-08-17T10:26:00.001-07:00

As programmers we've all had days when we get caught out by the "compatibility factor". The client's requirements state that the product needs to support every single version of the target OS created so far and shouldn't misbehave when the next version releases. So, we add in that little statement that go with each release note that says – "Product Testing on Microsoft Windows 3.x, 9.x, NT, 200x etc." When a bug is reported in a particular OS, and your Project manager questions your very existence, you can't help it but say - "I wasn't born when Windows 3.x existed and don't know what the next version will be like". At the end of the day, when you sit around with your team thinking on the "Howtos", its sometimes becomes a conclusion that the language/script in which coding has been done refuses to be backward compatible.

Recently, I got caught out using the simple "getURL" in Flash. After AS 3.0, I haven't really done much with the real basics. I had to use it since the functionality targeted Flash version was 7.0. Now, I couldn't be doing something wrong with getURL.. it flows with my blood! So, I ventured out into the net and found:

Adobe Technote: http://www.adobe.com/go/50c1cf38

The solution didn't work either. I didn't have enough time to work on it and things came to the crunch. There were only two ways to solve the problem for local testing:

Change the "local playback security" setting to "Access network only".
Add the domain path to my Flash player's security settings panel.

I opted for the first method. Anyway there weren't any external files that I was loading. So, it was mission: accomplished. But, there have been times when it took more time to solve a single backward compatibility/forward compatibility issue than code a whole module in. Like, for example, there was this product that we were working on which used a particular font. Please note that the product itself was made during the era of Chengiz Khan, and, we were just creating a minor version upgrade for some of the functionality, we didn't really have the time to work on porting the entire code to a new generation platform. Hence, we suffered quite a bit. The problem was simple – Windows Vista refused to accept installation of an older version of the font that we needed to use. Yep, it was a default OS packaged font. The impact would be mis-alignment of text almost everywhere in the product. It is something we never though would happen. It did! Murphy was right!

The gurus of the business say that it would be better to use the new and throw the old out of the window. The reality is.. we still need 'em old clothes and it needs to fit us perfectly!

“Astro” is here!

2008-05-17T09:30:00.001-07:00

"Astro" aka Flash Player 10 is here! I downloaded it off Labs (http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html) yesterday night. I was excited to see the Demos posted on: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/demos/ in new light! What excited me a lot was the new text rendering engine. A couple of things that I liked and saw a lot of possibilities were - the 3D engine, new streaming abilities for video and audio that adjusts video quality according to bandwidth available, improved hardware acceleration (haven't experimented with this feature..still!). Yeah, you will find the feature list on almost all the sites that talk about "Astro".

It was during the heydays of Flash 4.0, I was talking to a friend (another one in the computer-man's chest!) and the whole concept of having interactive stuff on your site was beyond imagination. Those were the days of the dial-up, when download speeds were in the "." (Decimals). I was talking to the same friend yesterday. He still hasn't picked up Flash as a development tool (more of a .NET guy!), but, he knew what I was talking about. I was actually surprised to see that his laptop already had "Astro" on it! Talk about fame and penetration rates. On the other hand, a lot of people I interact with on a more daily basis don't know what the technology is all about and how it works. They are still getting used to the transformation and spew slang when they see the infamous "loading…" screen. Of course, you don't need to expect them to know about the technology if they aren't related to it in anyway.

Now, in my field – Advertising, we have come to Flash Player 7 as the max requirement. So, when "Astro" releases, I am hoping that it reaches Flash 8 at least. I am sure "Astro" will be handier to us in promoting products and giving the user more by telling him and by being able to show him more of products. That's where the 3D engine becomes exciting. Creatives can be more dynamic and that calls for a whole new level of user experience – engrossing! The streaming capabilities of the new player also reduce a lot of burden when it comes to production of video –based promotion material. The way Flash player has been handling text has always been a concern. This has improved and been added on in "Astro".

My most wanted feature is the File API. This allows you to popup a file dialog and load the selected file at runtime. Does this mean that you can save file to disk? Well..

Welcome to your digital life!

2008-05-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

Adobe announced the "Open Screen Project" a few days ago and Microsoft had earlier announced the "Live Mesh". I've come across posts that compare the two..uhh.. three (Don't forget Google Gears!). But, I guess the three of them are different types of platforms. I haven't used the three of them. Still in the waiting list for the Tech Preview of "Live Mesh".

As I understand it, Adobe's Open Screen project creates a common Flash/AIR platform to deliver rich experiences over a variety of devices - PCs, Television, Mobile devices etc. For the developer, it makes it a whole lot easier to build and deploy applications over a wide variety of devices. Hopefully, it should be "Build once and deploy on all" (remember iPhone! - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/05/adobes-flash-not-good-enough-for-steve-jobs/). For the user, he gets a rich experience with the added benefits of portability. Which is really kewl!

The Live Mesh is a synchroization platform, wherein, users get to synchronize data across usually disconnected devices. So, now you can synchronize between your personal laptop, your home PC, work PC, Mobile devices and the Mac that sits in your room. Oh! ok, doesnt that sound like the "now in beta" Windows Live FolderShare? Naaah! what sets the two apart is the word "platform". Mesh combines several web services that sync data over a "Cloud". So, you need to install some sort of a client software that enables the synch. Ok, so we have been talking "users" till now. For the developer, we get to build applications that synch data over a wide variety of devices using the web services

Its "Synch" Vs "delivery" here. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Being a developer, I would certainly love to play with both platforms (APIs..slurppp!), but, I guess its early days to really build an opinion on things. Do I smell a Flash VS Silverlight thing here..somewhere?

Happy coding!

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout did not take the garbage out!

2008-05-01T10:45:00.001-07:00

Deadlines are becoming outrageously tight and developers are left as last men standing. Products run through numerous loops of testing just to crash at architecture levels. Time crunch has become a major issue that most of us face and find hard to handle. But, this isn't an excuse for poor coding and improper usages. We can't call ourselves as "Programmers", if we don't know to code clean and clean after coding.

In the Flash World, a lot of programmers blame the Player for not doing its work when needed, but, if you take a look at the code, you will find a lot of misses – onEnterFrame not being deleted after use, Intervals not being clears, typing not done for variables, having insanely numerous variables – a lot of which don't get used..and the list goes on.

The Flash Player has evolved with time and become a lot better when it comes to memory management and garbage disposal. The built-in garbage collector removes unused objects from the memory, enabling objects-in-use to use the memory. The Flash Player 9 adopts the strategy of marking objects having active references. Objects that aren't marked are automatically considered inactive and removed from memory when the cleaning cycle runs. Yeah, it's a "cleaning cycle", which means that inactive objects are not removed from the memory immediately, but, they are removed when the next cycle runs. There seems to be no way of knowing when this cycle runs. Hence, code needs to be written in a way that makes sure that memory is managed efficiently by-

Removing objects and references to objects that are not in use.
Using memory monitoring code. We have the handy System.totalMemory to its advantages. When I suggested using this to a friend, I found every function in a class having an IF statement checking memory usages. Man!
Only program for what is needed. I've seen programmers implement what they call "Flexibility" to their architectures. This "flexibility" is just code that lies waiting till the real feature is brought in after 20 years and 20 versions, whichever comes first!
Run a code clean up cycle after getting in all the functionality. It helps you relook at the code and make improvements. There would have been things that could be done in a different way.
Resource hungry code needs to have clean ups like – onEnterFrames need to be deleted, objects should be nulled after use.

UPDATE: I found this article on Devnet - http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/garbage_collection.html. This explains things in a better way!

Happy Coding!

A day with the big daddy!

2008-05-01T02:25:00.001-07:00

The long wait was over! The Adobe AS3 Tour finally got here. A whole day of "code talk"...that was exciting!

Any newbie venturing into the world of ActionScript would surely know a few people out there and consider them demi-gods/gurus/mentors. Colin Moock has always been up there for me. His books are great, simple and easy to understand. You don't need to keep a "Jargon for Dummies" book handy while reading 'em. I follow his ways when I take seminars and sessions – keep it simple, but detailed. I have been in the field for more than 5-6 yrs now and I've come a long way from being a person who just tried things out coz it was the need-of-the-hour to a person who can really code and be technical about things. I owe a great chunk of what I know and do to this man! So, getting at what I am trying to get at – to see the person you admire...made my day.

The session targeted people who were just starting out (know a bit of programming basics), intermediates and advanced users…well…that's what "ground up" means, so it was something I expected. Being a "ground up" thing didn't sound boring to me, since, I haven't studied programming formally and it tightened the screws a lot more and took away a lot of inhibitions I had about things.

Thanks Colin, for the great session! Do get well and come back soon J

This side of things

2007-11-15T10:38:00.001-08:00

I have been offline (from home) for sometime now and the whole experience with the Reliance WiMax connection has been terrible. I have had this connection for about 15 days now and have been able to use it for only about 3 days. This really sucks, especially, if you have big plans like me – the "after I get broadband at home" list.

Till about last week, I was able to get an IP, if I waited for around for about 3 hrs. Now, its more like NEVER! Tech support sucks too. They take you through the usual routine – Start > Run > type "Cmd" > ipconfig /all, ipconfig /release (some people add this..dunno for what effect!), ipconfig /renew. Oh yeah! there is also the power off the PPOE device and the restart the machine thing! Another common term I used to hear – "teething problems". If you did have teething problems, you would give out so many connections. Surely, the public will most certainly jump into the whole thing when they hear about it.

I should have got the usual broadband connected with wires, but, I had heard good reviews about the WiMax connection and decided to jump into the bandwagon. The connection is really good..if.. you get the IP address...that is! Mine is a 300KBPS Unlimited option and I get about 50KBPS download rate on an average. Somehow, all that seems like a dream now. I am having to fallback on my Mobile GPRS connection to check my emails and browse a bit. I will wait till the weekend. If(status=="problem not solved){ actionUnsubscribe=true}

Evolv

The development continues. It has been slow and I hit upon some new stuff to include. This was something I was working on a long time ago. A utility called IAD (Interactive Advertisement). That has now become obsolete, considering the amount of change the media has been through. But, along the same lines, I am building an add-on, which would enable users to control template based ads on their sites. These adverts will be configurable to an extent and make life a lot easier for people who have signed up as affiliates or anything of that sort. Yeah, advertising seems to have become a fad with me. I work in a advert company... DUHHH!

Also, I am considering changing the engine of my content management console a bit. I kinda hit a road block with it. I guess it has more to do with reusing bits of code from the old Spark versions. So, the old AS2 migrated code needs to be redone from scratch using AS 3.0. L

I will have a complete list of features up soon. I still have to complete the calculations J

Ciao!

Deconstructing “Spark”

2007-11-05T08:52:00.001-08:00

First up – Thank you, Heidi (Adobe) for the envelope of stickers! :)

With about 20% development of "Evolv" complete, I thought I'd build the "Application Family Tree" for "Spark" (or "Evolv" as it is now called!). It isn't a very big tree – just 3 major and one minor version. The whole idea of Deconstruction was fun!

What started off with a simple utility of type out my Blog entry for a really old version of my site, evolved to become a full-fledged application. Man! It is mind-blowing!

Spark V1.0 was built with very simple logic and just had a single function. Originally developed using Flash MX (ver 6.0) and good ol' VB 6.0, the code was pretty basic. It was the day of the Dial-up and being on the internet was expensive. So I needed something that could get my journal up and about. The answer was to have an offline application that could help me save my files with the necessities of the time. It was also the era where we needed that "&myVar=" in the text file to make it load into Flash. I developed a cheeky trick, wherein, VB would step in and make sure that it adds the variable at the beginning of the blabber and save the file. Simple thing worked out to be handy. Inspired by the success of the trick, I decided to make the rest of the site a bit more dynamic and applied the trick to all pages. So, depending on the section you are updating, you need to select the variable that needs to be added. Funny!

When MX 2004 was released, I took that leap. I decided to port existing functionality into MX 2004. Even though, initially, I wasn't too happy about using the V2 components, I decided to use them. But, things didn't end there. The major step was to make it an online application. We finally had cable internet at home and that changed everything! It was also a big jump, since, I had to upgrade almost everything – VB 6.0 to ASP.NET.. yeah! That was a leap! The whole technology upgrade made me add more things too. The original Journal Editor could now use Style Sheets and send out emailers. This has to be Version 2.0!

Spark V3.0 was a big step forward, once again. More features were added. Spark was rebuilt using AS 2.0 – Classes, objects et all. One of my clients asked me to add in some way to view Query results from his MS Access database. That became a good feature to have. I extended the feature to query SQL Server and MySQL databases also.

Spark 3.01 stuck to the same lines as 3.0. I make a few tweaks, did a lot of code cleanups and added one feature – File Upload. I broke my head literally at this feature and got a work around, since, Flash MX 2004 didn't have the feature. JavaScript came in handy here. The feature was buggy, but did its thing! As long as people who used it were happy having it, it didn't matter. Even though it was a minor version, it was the most memorable!

Spark didn't get to see Flash 8.0. I was kinda busy and didn't have the time to put in for an upgrade. I just spruced up the File Upload and used the FileReference class and functionality. No version change.. just a small tweak!

Now, almost 6 months later, the new version is under development. The change of product name was necessary – to something that truly reflects what the product does. "Evolv" (yeah no "e" at the end) is packed with features. It is being programmed as a whole plug n'play engine. You could just plugin the features you need and leave out the rest. The AS 3.0 and ASP.NET combination works really well and gives it the power and flexibility.

The whole deconstruction episode was really interesting and reflective. There are a couple of things I wouldn't have done and some I would. More on Evolv..soon!

LOST, LOCKED and two smoking barrels!

2007-10-27T06:33:00.001-07:00

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")

2007-10-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

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!

Is Ferrari losing it?

2007-09-09T09:59:00.001-07:00

I didn't want to be the one typing up this post, but, I guess it is time I did. I've always been a strong Ferrari supporter and will still be for the time to come. There have been times I had been put into a tough spot by my other F1 fanatic friends while talking F1 – the Rubens/Michael "let him pass" incident, a whole season of problems in the past couple of years etc. The team has always been passionate about racing through its history and I am sure they still are.

The Monza 2007 Grand Prix just finished with the McLarens on top and just Kimi's Ferrari finishing in 3^rd. Ferrari had always been strong in Monza, but, I've noticed that they have been on a steady decline in performance on their home circuit! Which is kinda sad!

Does the Scuderia Ferrari team miss Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and N. Stephney? They still have a strong set of people in Jean Todt, Kimi Raikonnen, Felipe Massa and the rest of the gang! The car seems to be strong on some circuits and absolutely terribly horribly weak on many others standing no match to the McLarens. The tyres, well, they are common to all teams, so that doesn't matter really. The mechanical package is unreliable. You somehow feel the unstability when one of the cars is slowing down. The two drivers are very good. You can't really get a better set of drivers than Kimi and Massa. Jean Todt and the rest of the crew have looked sharp as usual, except for the Massa "Oops! Forgot the fuel" incident. So what is really going wrong? The energy looks to be missing and that passionate team of 2003-2005 looks to be missing.

Have they been really bothered by the whole Stephney Gate thingy that they are saying to themselves – "Ok, spy satellites have seen us, now, there is no use of strengthening our defences" or aren't they really not as strong as we expect them to be at the end of the season when we need strong fighting performances? Ok, they look stronger than they did in 2005 and 2006, but, it isn't enough. Every team loses it at some point of time and rebuilds the glory. McLaren is doing it most certainly! The grit and determination seems to be lost in the abyss of unreliability. When you know your car is going to break, you really are scared to race with it. I would and I am sure somewhere deep inside the drivers feel it too somewhere deep within. As someone mentioned, all this could be a result of management and team shakeup that happened at the beginning of the season. They could be right.

Next week, it is the Spa Francochamps or the Belgian Grand Prix. Ferrari has always been good there and I hope it'll be a Ferrari 1-2. If the team needs to get back into the championship game, they need to do something about the reliability of the car, which is a major concern. They need to bother more about performing in the race than off the circuit, the car needs to work in all parts of the circuit, especially it needs to be quick over the kerbs and ride them with more speed and stability and the grit and determination to win whatever comes should be in there in true Ferrari passion and style!

All this said, Kimi did well to get to 3^rd. He crashed during the free practice and did well to comeback in the race. He rocks! J Massa would have been in the fight too if he hadn't retired due to the car failing on him again. Well, they have a big shot at Spa and I am sure Ferrari will be fighting!

The Sony NW-A1000 Review

2007-08-11T08:29:00.001-07:00

Ok, I am probably the last one on the planet to write a review on the player. Anyways, here goes..

The Story so far: In my quest to find the perfect sound, I embarked on the journey to find the best my pocket could afford. First, my quest took me through 3 different earphones – all Sony. I settled on one of them – the Sony MDR-J10. It looks sporty and had the type of sound I was looking for. My thirst was partly quenched, but, I still had to keep walking and find a good enough player that gave me the punch I was seeking. Lightning struck when Sony launched the Walkman range of phones. The idea of having a phone that rocked my heart out was something kewl and suited me in every sense. The SE W300i was something I really liked. Then, as if out of nowhere came another yearning. I gave into that too – I got me an iMate. OS on a phone is good, but, I didn't get the punch I wanted with the iMate. So, once again, I walked the long mile. Went to the mall, walked into the Apple store and...umm..well..naaaaaaah! not the iPod. My heart wasn't in it. I've always not really liked the bass of the iPod. So, I walked into E-Zone and straight to the Sony section. I felt like Jerry being flown to the pie.

So, I was here and looking at something that could store quite a lot of songs. GBs worth, but, I didn't want to store them all. Re-cycling is something that cuts out the boredom. My eyes fell on the latest line-up of portable mp3 players and then stopped on a purple Sony NW-A1000. 6GB sounded god enough. The sales chap put let me test it with the earplugs he had and it was..ok. I put in my J10 and WHOA! My next few steps were towards the cash counter and then back home.

Now, the story starts. The player is quite kewl and all that, but, there are hurdles to overcome. First, the player is a player..not mp3 player..OUCH! Then, you needed the SonicStage software to convert your mp3s into ATRAC and then dump them into your player. Copyrights, DRM..well. you name it! The software is really (it hurts when I say bad things about Sony..but..) awful. I couldn't get it to work on my Vista OSed laptop more than just once. The local support asked me to upgrade my firmware and SonicStage from a URL. The firmware upgrade was useful. The player response improved. But.. I haven't been able to download the new version of SonicStage. Its a nightmare considering the bandwidth I have and the fact that you needed an installer intermediary to actually download the software that you will be finally using. The whole philosophy of having such an intermediary sucks. Anyhow, I looked up at some forums and found some alternatives. Thanks to the folks at ATRACLIFE! You folks are awesome. The Winamp plugin allowed me to transfer my songs as ATRAC to the player. The transfer rate between the player and the PC is very good!

The next bit was to do with the volume. Some kind of Volume restriction is laid in. The max volume is like 30 and it ain't loud enough. It sounded good enough at the shop with doors closed and sound proofed, add some traffic and you go – "James, more head banging volume, man!" The folks at ATRACLife had a way here too. A combination of button presses and stuff and your volume is much louder! Kudos amigos!

Now, it was time to look at my face and the expressions on it - "Dude, iPod was better". NAAAAAH! I am going to stick to my guns.

The player is quite sexy. Mine's blue (couldn't get RED!). It has a liquid display and the buttons neatly arranged and user-friendly. The artist/song/album search features, the equalizer, Favorites list, Smart shuffle - the feature list was impressive. I didn't want a huge list of features – half of them I wouldn't use. More than all that - I love the sound. Keeping to the Sony tradition, the player has a good quality output. Add my J10 to it and its awesome.

I wouldn't say you must buy the player. You get better ones in the market. For me, this is good enough. J My software woes and volume issues are over with and now its good music to sooth the nerves. "Keep it comin', James.. YEAHHHH!"

Lets Play - "Follow the Leader"

2007-08-11T07:53:00.001-07:00

A few days ago, I was reading this forwarded email. I generally don't open emails marked with FWD immediately. It gets piled up till I go through them during the weekend maybe. This email, though, caught my attention when it arrived. The Subject read - "Team Science". Many of you out there must've read it too.

The article that the email carried was written in a very nice way. In about 20 sentences, it talked about being a team player and what goes into creating a successful team. I identified with every line of it.

Once you are in line for a Lead position, we hear the sentence - "You are as good as your team is..". To me, that sounds kinda silly! The Lead certainly needs to set an example to the team and all that, but, he needs to be an innovative person and a person who should be atleast 2 steps ahead of the team - LEAD FROM THE FRONT. To be able to do that in today's world is something quite challenging. Technology-wise, he needs to keep abreast of what is going on and know beyond just plain common stuff. Management-wise, the team should think what he is thinking. Only when there is an identity of minds, there will be a better understanding of things. The article actually reframed it as - "The team is as good as you are".

In today's world, we are crushed for time. Most leads are trying to find that 25th hour in a day to complete work, however organized and capable they are. Well, its not just about organization and ability, it has more to do with SUPPORT and UNDERSTANDING. Support from team mates, peers, people you report to and sometimes even people from other teams. Help is always needed somewhere or the other. Let us say that I am leading a team reporting to a Dept. Head, who, does not consider or even listen to what I have to say and just keeps asserting his/her own point of view everywhere, even if, it sometimes makes no sense, it does a lot of damage in the relationship and the chain of displeasure, frustration, irritation, loss of interest is built. That is when attrition levels boom. It is a "pass on" culture, your frustration is passed on to the next one and the next one and so on.

Being proactive is something everyone appreciates and it is a quality everyone needs to imbibe. As human beings, we are not always proactive about everything. We are reactive about some and proactive about some others. Its not a good leadership trait to preach pro-activeness, when, actually, you arent pro-active yourself, but, your management book says so. Such expectation will make your workmates uneasy around you, leading to a lot of unpleasantness and irritation. If you have a team that is, well, a big mix of character, its always good not to expect change in the root.. meaning to say.. you play around with the surface.. unless.. if the person is willing to change the way you want him to.

Another thing I've noticed quite a lot and sometimes do myself - playing the advisor. If you form the middle layer between a team and a head, well, you get it both ways and have to give it both ways. But, things are not so easy always. About 60% of the time, you are playing the dead poodle. 20% of the time, you hear it from upstairs and aren't really able to say much to your team.. just keep 'em yourself. The rest 20% is split into two 10 percents where you play the monkey. Keep running to both ends till you finally catch the ball and take it home. The "dead poodle" act is something that is really what is bothering. This is where you really need to work things out silently and play it out. Everything thinks you are dead, but, you are actually silently strategizing your next move. Playing the Advisor comes in all these percentages, you gotta talk to the people around you and make sure your point gets through. The minute your bullets hit the walls, JUST STOP! or mom will shoot!

These are just a few points that I've learnt the hard way.

It is all about T-I-M-E.. TICK! TOCK! TICK! TOCK!

2007-06-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

100 things to do in your 8hr working day? Yuhh! While you are squeezing and shoving the 100 things you have to do into the duffel bag..call "My Day", your Lead comes up to you and says - "Dude, I have sent you an email with 3 crucial issues". Your mind quickly calculates them as 103 things now and then you get angry, workedup and all frustrated and just want to quit the job and move to a deserted island in the middle of nowehere. Well, this is a typical scene in most offices of today. People often blame their superiors for poor planning..so on..and.. so forth. The crankiness and cribbing just makes work a chore.

Well, poor planning is one thing. But, there are also other things to consider. The need of the hour keeps changing and we need to be "Smart workers" to be able to fit things into our schedule appropriately. And then.. there is another thing where you need to open up that mouth and tell the Lead what the problem is and your estimate of the whole thing. Clear understanding and communication brings down a lot of barriers. This is missing with most of us. Most of us still dont do "Smart Work". I would say that "Smart Work" doesnot just involve planning an time management, it involves a whole lot more - Communication, proper estimation and analysis, Keeping to short-term goals, being more responsible and committed..and a whole lot more.
It is easy to complain and fall into that hole of self-pity and "Everybody hates me" grumpy attitude. Running away from things wont solves anything either. It follows you whereever you go, unless you are prepared to change and make the whole situation easier on you.

Usually, I am good at assessing situations and getting hold of things. About 5 months ago, when I joined my current workplace, I totally lost my mind. The whole balance between Official and personal life was lost - not that I have much of a personal life per se, still, I just couldnt manage things the way I wanted to. But, on that journey back from home, I made up my mind, assessed things and worked them out. I had to change my perspective a lot more than I thought. But, it helped me and still helps. Now, I am working more at my Management skills. For those who know me - Lets just say we all need to sometimes let go :)

Space woes

2007-02-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

It is that time of the year again - time to re-partition my hard disk! I've been trying to postphone the exercise for sometime now, but, lack of living space has kinda forced me into the big decision! To imagine that when we bought our first PC, 1 gig HDD was Huuuuge. Now, 80gigs is too small and my 40gig HDD is like damn tiny...and I thought things were getting smaller in size!!!

I have been pondering and pondering and still have time to ponder over the OS - good ol' XP or Vista? The XP CD that I have has my display driver missing. So, after the first reboot, I dont get display. I need to connect the laptop to an external display and force feed the driver. Vista, on the other hand, has the driver and it installs quite nicely taking about 90mins.

30gigs should be enough space for the OS and the rest of the gang - Flash, Flex, VS.NET 2K5 etc. I am also thinking of a upgrade of my HDD and RAM. The whole deal is rather funny. On the one hand, we are trying to make software more "portable" for all these devices we carry and on the other, for the PC, the applications are becoming bulkier in all its sense.

Anyhow, see you folks after the format!

I am Baccccckkkk!

2007-01-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

So.. I am baacccck from my Blogging Sabatical. Almost everything was down - my site, my net connection..well..now that I have it all back, its time to roll in the mud once again. I really missed being here and doing this!

There's just so much to catch up with. News of Flex 3 floating around already and all that talk of it and the next few versions also supporting Flash Player 9. It sounds great and I'll certainly wait for the actual full set of features of the Player. I have been trying my hand at WPF these days and I believe it is a serious competitor. Ofcourse, I somehow prefer using Blend than type out each line of code. It is so much easier. So far, I have done my "Hello World", "Hello " and jumped to XML connections and parsing. I will write my experience as time goes on. For now, I'll just sit here and be confused on the technology to adopt for my new site. A part of me says "Go MS!" and the rest of me sez "Adobe, dude". AS 3.0 Flash 9, Flex app style site, WPF/E..well.. I guess its gonna me a big mix!

Another big news was the release of the Linux Flash 9 Player. I am not a big fan of the OS, but, it does mean a lot to me as a Flash Developer and enthusiast. So much more reach, which is, really exciting.

Then, there is the biggie - MS finally released Vista yesterday. I kinda got a few glimpses of the video here and there. But, hey, I dont really need to see, I already use it..hehehheh! I must say here that I find it so stable compared to the early versions of XP that I have used at about the same time. No bluescreens so far and I am really happy for that!

Whoa! just saw the email that my Blog is getting aggregated by MXNA. Its so *SNIFF* *SNIFF* Kewwwwlllll. Thank you Christian and Mike :)

Adobe SoundBooth - BETA it sezzz!

2006-10-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Downloaded Adobe SoundBooth from Adobe Labs yesterday. I was eager to install and start using it, but, sleep had caught hold of me and shaken me to..umm..sleep! Even the eagerness couldnt shake it off..anways..lets talk about sleep another time. Its all about SoundBooth

First up - The installer is kinda rough. Its all still getting cooked, so you will see a lot of "Blah X is going to come here". I didnt really mind what the installer did, coz, I wanted to get on with using the application. One thing though - unlike other Adobe installers, this one is actually a Zip file that you download from the Labs site and then extract to install. 58MB download (approx) and 138MB on HDD (approx).

Having used Adobe Audition and Sound Forge, you are used to what to expect of editing apps. So, I was right away looking for Markers, noise reduction, normalization, fade in/out...and..I found them all in the proper places and didnt have to go hunting around - User Friendly!!!

[Update : You cant compare SoundBooth to SoundForge or Audition. They are really professional editing tools. SB is more like a normal guy's tool to do the small things easily!]

The grey interface resembles Audition a lot, which makes it quite easy for audition users who want to..ahem.."feel at home". You can brighten up the interface from the Preferences and customize the look and feel to an extent :)

You dont have too much to play with. About 4 effects, the faders, markers and a lot of recording. Ok, I spoke too soon.. there is a whole Task Panel that I am discovering. The Task Panel contains options that allow you to Clean up Audio, Create Music and Remove a Sound.

Clean up Audio - You can remove noise (similar to Noise Gate in Sound Forge 8) and similarly remove Clicks & Pops and Rumble sounds. All Fantastic and very useful in my day to day Audio processing life!

Create Music - You can browse and select SoundBooth Score templates, set it to time and modify a lot of properties that helps you fit the score into whatever you have recorded. I wish this would also allow us to import other sound filetypes. I could be singing with Bon Jovi :D. More experimenting to be done with this.

Remove a Sound - I havent tried it yet. Will update this later!

So I took a test drive and played around with..ahem..the voice of the nightingale..ahem..moi. Recoreded some Whistling, about 2 lines of "Lips like Morphine" (sung by me!) and all the natural sounds around me - of the fan spinning etc.. I first tried the Normalize and it was quick. I also used the Voice Enhancer. The "I want a girl with.." line was very clear..certainly could notice the difference in the enhancement. Every effect you apply, the change is noticable. I know I wont be using the Chorous effect or the Compression for my production anytime soon, but I think it would be worth a more detailed try as time goes on.

One feature I liked and didnt like - If you are playing a sound and when you change to another app (tabbing away from SoundBooth), the Sound pauses. You will need to Play the sound again when you tab back. Its good and bad :) :(

My Wishlist:

1. Settings for Normalization allowing users to set the dB rates they want.

2. Support for other filetypes in the Create Music panel :)

3. Well..the MP3 and FLV support which they are planning to add into the future versions :)

More experiments tomorrow :)

I should say that it fits into what I do so perfectly! I am not an audio processing expert, but, need to do it as my work demands it. I dont deal with MP3s and FLVs, so I dont really mind them not being supported. Its just for the "non work playtime" that I want them added to the Export filetype list.

Some Screenshots:
GUI - (not default layout)
http://www.flashofscarlet.com/downloads/SB/UI.jpg

GUI - Cleanup Audio
http://www.flashofscarlet.com/downloads/SB/UI3.jpg

GUI - Create Music
http://www.flashofscarlet.com/downloads/SB/UI2.jpg

[Update : These are just my initial reactions. I still need to do a really thorough experiment/test with it and see how it goes. I plan to do this over the weekend. So expect a big test result in my next post. Also, I'm trying out Audacity : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/ . I've read great reviews about it and plan to use it instead of getting a copy of Plus! Analog Recorder for my upcoming Audio cassette to Digital Format conversion home project. Expect a this vs that too]

More info on SoundBooth and other product sneak peeks that were presented at MAX:
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/dehaan/archives/2006/10/day_3_sneak_pee.cfm

Awesome Web puzzles!

2006-10-12T03:51:00.000-07:00

I've never really had much patience to do puzzled..and that..that puzzled a lot of people. However, I seem to have gotten addicted to these new fangled web puzzles.

One of my friends sent me a link the other day - http://www.freestuffhotdeals.com/hacker/1.html

It took me a lot of "patience gathering" to crack the puzzle. I did manage to crack it..in a fits n' starts way! I couldnt sit in front of my PC and totally solve it at a stretch. I ended up helping/trying to help others with some pages and finally managed to complete the whole thing.

Once I got used to it, it was time for one of my other friends to send me another URL to a similar type of puzzle. Only, this time it turned out to be a bit more difficult and it was created by some IIM folks. URL - http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/

I havent completed it..just reached no : 20. Maybe I'll complete it during the weekend. Its getting tougher as the page numbers increment. Its worth the challenge. The best page was :http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/singalong.asp I got totall misled and got back after about 2 hrs on it. I was thinking "Sound of.." (music..silence..!)..that's the Page Title! A few clues got those mighty wheels spinning again. I almost hit my head on the desk when I found what it was. Rock lives on!

I've already got another URL : http://deathball.net/notpron/
Did the first couple of pages and its already getting really tough.

I guess I am into some puzzle solving groove, nevertheless, it really helps me develop my analytical skills - its really dusty in there! You need to think on your feet and think way out of the box, if you want to really get through the many pages. And when you cross the finish line..its like "Yo! really awesome duude!"

Well..so I am going to make one too. :) Its going to be a bit different - with new challenges and wierd concepts. The whole idea is growing and adding into its complexity. SNARLLL! It should take me about a week to complete it and have it up and running. :)

Application Management Framework : Part One

2006-10-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

This has been a longtime "in the works", coz, I wasn't been able to consolidate ideas into one big-bang theory. I am delighted that its finally taking shape - slowly, but, steadily and almost into the first phase of development.

Basically, the Framework will allow users to consolidate, customize, manage and execute files on the web. The type of content can be websites or learning material. It includes user authentication and content management consoles to make sure that the user gets what he sees!

Ok, I know all this sounds too extensive and vast. So, I am restricting it to Flash-based content. So, whatever Flash supports, the Framework supports too :) Whatever it is..one thing is for sure, its going to be Flash and .NET all the way!

I am unable to let out more information right now. So, expect the PART TWO of this entry to carry more news and technical stuff.

My Vista RC1 Outing [updated]

2006-09-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

BUILD : Windows Vista RC1 (checked Build) 5600
EDITION : Windows Vista Ultimate
TARGET MACHINE : Acer Aspire 3002NLC with AMD Sempron 2800+, 512MB RAM, 15GB HDD (for the Vista partition)

It took me almost a week to download the Vista RC1. You could blame it a bit on my bandwidth and a lot more on my laziness to resume the download each time. The last few MBs almost got me crying like a child. The reviews I had read on the RC1 had kinda made me plan into making it my primary OS instead of XP temprorily, so that I could truly experience the whole thing.

The installation took about 90mins. Almost everything was plug n'play, including my laptop's XGA monitor (which wasnt a plug n'play for Beta 2). Now, that was a nice start! Yeah, I did say "almost everything" a sentence ago! It didnt take my Realtek soundcard as plug n' play..so I had to force it in. Then came the long list of devices, which I literally force fed into accepting.

1. Huawei datacard - for internet : tried compatibility mode etc. It gave me lots of trouble and didnt install it. Then, I found a cheeky trick. I went to DEVICE MANAGER > Selected the Datacard > Properties > Driver tab > Update Driver and pointed it to the exact location of the driver. It was my last shot and it worked! I then had to quickly activate Windows Vista. I just had 3 days to activate. Now, we'll talk about this bug a little later.

2. USB TV Box - for..umm..TV : Once again, not plug and play..so I shovelled the driver in just like before and I have gotten really used to it! It took my USB box, but, not the TV Player software. It said it had to reboot coz there was a DCOM failure.

3. SE W300i - Phone software - I was able to install it in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode..and it did work sweetly after that.

Now, for the Activation Bug I spoke in point "1".. During the numerous restarts I had to do trying to get the devices to work, the 14 days decreased to 3 days! Now..thats ODD!

I had enough with Hardware and drivers, so I decided to do some software installation:

Windows Live Messenger 8 - Installed normally and functional

Yahoo Messenger 8 - Got till the download screen and then it reported that it wasnt able to access a particular tmp file from the temp folder, so it exited and I wasnt able to install it after that!

IIS 7 and Web stuff - Present under "Turn on additional components" (or something similar to that!) in the Add/Remove programs, you have a whole range of new things you would come across. I only picked up IIS and all that goes with it. Installation took about 10mins and then it worked well enough. I didnt try to make anything, just did a http localhost to check if it had installed correctly. I just had a glance at the IIS Manager and it felt damn powerful. I dont know much about it, so, I preferred not to play around till I've read the following article and understood what I will be dealing with :

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/09/07/IIS-7.0-RC1.aspx

NOTE: I guess I was kinda done with the experimenting. Mind you, I turned off UAC till I completed installation, so that, I had no trouble along the way.

The End is the Beginning

2006-09-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, Andre Agassi announced his retirement. I am a big Agassi fan. I felt sad that the time had come. Well, today.. it came.. another big announcement - Michael Schumacher announced his retirement from racing after a splendid victory at Monza, Italy. I kinda knew this was going to happen. This was being debated about so much that the news was actually out! Its once again a sad part of such a wonderful day in my life.

We'll talk about Andre in a seperate post. For now, its all about the man of the moment - Schumi. You could say I grew up with him. I've watched all 7 of his championships, 90 wins, ruthless controversial tussels with the likes of Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen, teams he changed, good times and bad times. Its almost as if I knew the guy! So, you can imagine what a huge fan I have been of the man! My biggest moment came when he joined Ferrari. Ferrari have always been my favourite. Add the man to the team and it was a mighty combination! Rules and F1 racing has changed to make sure every season isnt a "red wash".

He is certainly at the top of my Heroes List, whatever anyone says. His passion, grit, determination, cheekiness are qualities I admire the most. I knew it was coming when I saw Corinna Schumacher in the pits. She doesnt come to races that often and is usually always there when anything big is coming. Well, this was the day and about 30mins ago! Schumi made the announcement after taking his 90th Victory and getting Ferrari ahead of Renault in the Constructors championship.

2007 will see a new Ferrari line-up - Kimi Raikkonen and Fellipe Massa. I've always wanted to see Kimi at Ferrari. He is another man who has the qualities I admire the most. The "Ice man" will fit into Schumi's boots perfectly..and..maybe even better the champion. Its going to be awesomely exciting! Most truly - "Every cloud has a silver lining!"

For the rest of the season, I wish my hero "All the best" and I am sure he will win the title. It has been a presentation of sorts for my B'day!

I made a Red Ferrari Sony Ericsson W300i theme. You can download it here - http://www.flashofscarlet.com/Downloads/w300ithme.zip

Mall Culture?

2006-09-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

Cochin or Ernakulam, as it is called, used to be a sleepy li'l town when it comes to weekend life and night life. The beaches, places of historical importance and traditional ways, attracts a lot of tourists, but, youngsters in the city always said - "There is no place to hangout here. Its boooooorrring!". We notice the "difference" when we visit places like Bangalore or Gurgaon. The way of life in these places are different. Its more community-oriented and very social. Ok, Ernakulam can't be compared to both these cities. But, the "Youngster Revolution" was catching pace. A lot of people I know moved out to these bigger cities to look for "jobs and a Life" (as they put it).

It took a number of years, change had to kick some dust! You want a Mall? Ok, a Mall you get! But..but..wait..we have the Infopark (http://www.infoparkkochi.com) that came up first! So, these companies in Infopark employed a lot of youngsters and..they had no where to hangout. No Central Perk to sit with friends and go yakety yak.

Then, came the light, in the form of Cafe Coffee Day (http://www.cafecoffeeday.com) - the infamous cafe chain. Lets say the youth got a flavour of high-priced premium blend coffee and it became a good place to hangout..but for the people with the pockets! The guys got to see girls in jeans and tshirts and the girls saw guys in..ok..jeans and tshirts. You can make out what you want out of that sentence. ;-)

Shhhhhhh! then it came up - THE MALL! Now, I have been to these before in Gurgaon. Malls are..like..Da Hangout Centrallll. Many people here dont know Ernakulam has a mall. Rightly so, we didnt really know it came up. So, the big brands got their shops and displayed those pricey items on the shelves and big brand food outlets setup the foodcourt. Now you got a centrally air-conditioned Hangout place!! Once again the way people acted..changed. The age of the coffee pub got modified a bit. Girls wore jeans and tshirts and guys wore jeans and tshirts. It grew more hugging and maybe even shorter and revealing. Were they buying these from the malls? some do..people like me..who are crazy about some brands. Most other visit what we call "the AC market" (its open air..cheap stuff!) and other shops. These are places they used to shop from! There are exceptions to this..but..you can easily count 'em up.

So, Hangout changed tradition and culture? Hangout changed things about people. A normal guy who cant dream about getting a girl who can afford a glass of Swiss hot chocolate at the Barista, would try-to-be to impress or even get close.

I am not really a "hangout" type of person. I step into the Barista to enjoy a good tall glass of Swiss Chocolate. One of my friends asked me to "get a life" the other day. I argued with her for a longtime. Life is not about getting a steady lover (as in girlfriend), life is not about going to a mall, life is not about wearing those jeans and tees and wearing that wierd look hair and painting up faces.. Life is what you think it is and what you want it to be..and enjoy. Its not something that happens just here in Ernakulam, it happens everywhere, only, you dont really notice it so much in the so-called "modern" places. Its more noticed in places like these.

You could say "Times are changing, man!", but, where is it going and did time really say you need to do such things to advertise yourself? I am not pointing fingers at just the mall. Malls are good. Its a jazzed up shopping complex where you can buy stuff, eat and have a good shopping day!

LiveWriter test

2006-08-27T01:20:00.000-07:00

This is my first post from "Microsoft LiveWriter" Beta. I am not sure what it is going to look like or how its gonna be. Lets just say I love surprises!

I like the idea of the LiveWriter. Previously, I used to type up my post using Notepad and keep it saved as a textfile till I get online and publish it. Yeah, sure I am on wireless internet and can connect even when I am on-the-move. But, there are times when you aren't able to or you dont want to. Anyhow, I can now type up and save the draft on my hard disk..till I want to publish it. Ofcourse, if my lethargy rules the day, some posts may still never make it online!!

So, is LiveWriter the answer to my prayers (if I prayed!) ? We'll see!!

Wild Widget World

2006-08-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

I saw a job post quite recently that read - "Wanted : Widget Developers..". The paycheck works out to be quite a handsome amount too. You cant deny that the club will get bigger!

There is a lot of stress being laid on "getting all the information want in one place". The battles have begun and the key players are the big wigs. Apple had the widget thingies for quite a longtime now. MS brings in the Sidebar in Vista. The Google toolbar also has gained a lot of fame. Adobe is planning to start a whole new revolution with Apollo. But..is it really worth having so much information in one place - on your desktop? I lean both sides for this one actually and am unable to take a pick.

The world is rapidly changing - new technologies coming in and things are getting a lot more competitive. There is so much happening and its getting tougher to keep tab on all of them..or..atleast..some of those that interest you. I aggregate about 7 RSS feeds on my Outlook 2K7 aggregator and still have like 350 unread posts. Remember, thats only the stuff I chose to aggregate!

Its not really "video killed the TV star" anymore! Its the PC that is bringing in quite a storm..uuh..ok..a correction..its not just the PC, its a whole world of gadgets and gizmos. A mobile phone is much more than just being a device to make/receive calls. The phrase has been coined "Mobility".. but.. do we really use all that stuff when we are mobile? A lot of us would shake our heads vertically. The way we pass time has changed. We prefer plugging into our iPods or walkman phones and churn up the mobile phone to send and receive information, whether it is just checking email or even blogging. GPRS has really kicked off bigtime and is going great guns!

OK, so thats one set of people who love to stay in touch with information and all that comes and goes with it. The other set of people still need the morning coffee and newspapers. They only think of a computer as a tool (and not life! ;-)). Well, these people are cool and collected!

The third set of people are funny! They are the big wigs in companies and are equipped with the latest stuff money can buy! They prefer to show off sayin' - I have a X brand laptop/PDA. The maximum they do with it is really just use basic Word or make calls. They dunno crap, but show off.

The reason I made the classification - the first set of people are really going to be the ones using and building the widgets. Like me, they have 350 unread posts...and.. have all the widgets/toolbars/sidebars etc that one can download off the net.. inspite of it.. 349 are still left ( minus the one that is displayed by default) or they dont really have the time to look at the widgets and the info it displays coz they are running around working for the 2nd and 3rd classes of people. The widgets load up at startup and remain there as is till the end of the day.. hogging the resources and not really serving much purpose.

Ofcourse, there is the "15 day ecstasy" factor. The first 15 days that you spend with the widget.. are the most exciting. You even start developing some yourself and maybe reply to a few of those job posts.

Happy B'day Flash! (Belated!)

2006-08-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to publish this post for the past 3 days. Anyhow, time and I reached an agreement just now and we are live!

"Flash" is 10 years and 8 versions old now. Its time to reflect a bit on things and check out whats cookin'!

The first SWF I saw was back during the days of Flash 3. I am not sure if it was the Spooky and Bandit site that really did it! I was really taken by the interactivity and fluidity of graphics and sound. It was an amazing experience. Remember, these were still the days of HTML and poor bandwidth on dialups. For the amount of GFX, Sound and interactivity there was, it took quite a short time to load. Following natural instincts, I wanted to get onto the bandwagon. I went into a design based chatroom and asked - "How do I save a file as an SWF?". Got a quick reply - "File > Save". Ok, they were just pulling my leg, and that didnt spoil my eagerness. About 2-3 days later I got it. The Macromedia suite trial on a magazine CD- Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Director and Flash.

I still didnt know Flash made SWFs and kinda got confused with Shockwave. Yahoo-ed (Google was unknown to me back then!) for it and found Director to be doing the Shockwave thingy. Director was kewl at first, but, became a bit boring. And then, one day, it had to happen! I said - "Wonder what Flash is.." it said animation and interactivity in the product info!!! Installed it, used it and Loved it!

So that was how I got into Flash! I have been thru every version since then and now trying out stuff with Flash 9. Flash has truly become powerful - from just typing gotoAndStop to OOPS. The people at Macromedia (and now with Adobe) are all true visionaries! "FutureSplash Animator", kinda meant for Animation is now a big thing with developers too.

Big Steps:
- Flash MX (V6) brought in the components
- Flash MX 2004 Professional brought in OOPS, V2 components with data handling mechanisms, Mobile Development. Flash-based RIA grew!
- Flash 8 was a big step in rendering engines for text, graphics, together with blending and also gave a huge thrust to mobile development and Rich Internet applications.
- Flash 9 brings in AS 3. A huuuuuuuuge step forward and mighty powerful!

Macromedia also had other ways to exploit the technology and create products that used the Flash concept. They created Flash Remoting, Flash Communication Server, Central, Flex, Flashpaper, Breeze, Flash Lite and so on. All this goes to say how big the Flash technology really is!

Flash never really had a tough competitor! Corel brought in RAVE and Adobe brought in LiveMotion, when Macromedia announced SWF as opensource! Flash won at every turn. More people want their sites to made using Flash..Hell!! applications are being made with Flash! A lot of companies wanted to make their pot of money and brought in stuff to support Flash. EXE makers, decompilers, Editors..u name it!

Adobe acquired Macromedia and continue to spread the wings. Platform independence, Device support, application development, design and interactivity still remain buzzwords and as long as all these things makes sense, Flash will continue on its path. The future remains bright and big days are ahead!

Will Microsoft play their game and destroy Flash with "Sparkle"? The rumour mill says Sparkle might support the web in future versions. Whats more.. IE now blocks active content. Get it?I've said things before about Sparkle previously and supported it to a big extent. As long as Flash is out there, I will always love it!

Happy B'day Flash! And here is to the next 100 years! :)

The Battle of the Blogs

2006-08-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

Keeping a diary and penning your thoughts in it was the in-thing not so long ago. A diary was considered a big possession and meant to be a secret thing. Reading other people's diaries was considered a bad thing and frowned upon. Girls were more possessive about it than guys. Well, that was back..centuries ago! The days have changed and we are living in tomorrow!

"Blogs" have now become the in-thing..and..if u have a blog and get quite a lot of hits, you are considered kewl. People love reading blogs and love to aggrate the RSS of fav blogs and keep uptodate on stuff. Companies seem to use blogs in quite a nice way too. Interesting bits of news are released on blogs and build up excitement. Its now become casual talk when u say - "you know about blah.. I read about it quite a long time ago on Mr. Blah's blog". It carries a lot of importance and has become a prestigious thing to read blogs of companies.

I am sure that the reading bit is very easy, but, the writing bit is kinda tough...especially for people like me..who dont want to share personal stuff online, but still keep an identity. Back when I started blogging, I used it like a diary and didnt really want to attract much attention..just a place to put ones thoughts. Well, then things changed and wars were fought. With this blog id, I try to mix and match between techy stuff and stuff like..well..this one. I do prefer to lean a bit more on the techy side of things..especially to do with technologies I love - Flash, Fireworks and "Sparkle". I plan to do so after August. For now, it will be what it is!

THE TRUTH ABOUT SANCHEZ and all that Blah!

2006-07-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Meet Sanchez, the dude..ahem..beetle...actually just a li'l green bug with a big attitude! Sanchez was born somewhere between the north and south regions of the Amazon jungle. Unlike the coyote that doesnt speak, Sanchez is damn talkative...and talk.. he does! Sometimes, he says wise things. "He" insists that I cam "him" a "He" and not "It". And another thing - Sanchez doesnt believe in - "Speak only when spoken to". He speaks and makes sure you listen.

Ok, you must be thinking I watch too many cartoons and gone twidle-de-doo in my head. Umm.. I wont deny it. Cartoons are my life and need to see atleast 1 cartoon a day to keep my apetite at bay. Sanchez is a figment of my imagination, most truly, and I plan to carry a series on him on my website (when all is ready!). For now, I use Sanchez's name as an excuse while saying something nutty (but wise!). You can say that it is just a way to bring a smile (or even a burst of laughter) to people's faces. It feels nice and I am sure Chuck Jones must have felt that way too. Me feeling nice about something is certainly a selfish thing.. but.. I guess when people are happy, it brings a smile to your face too.

Lately, I think I've been having an overdose of cartoons. All is watch are cartoons it seems! Somehow, I dont have much of patience to watch a movie or anything else. Whether it is Spongebob squarepants or the Looney Toon Show, its all a part of the apetite. Mom thinks I've been making too much of kiddie software, but, I just think its that "inner child" that sees 'em. Just kidding! Actually, movies have become too stale. All we get these days is "old stuff" brought back to life with a "Returns" or "begins". That punch that movies had has gone poof! There seems to be no element in it that makes you really go see it. The hype that some movies get are too much. I wont say names, but most of the movies that have been hyped can be missed. Music has become more of a "sex sells" show. Raunchy steamy videos are the order of the day and it makes you go sick after sometime. There are a few good bands/artists around still, but their vids arent aired that much. TV series..umm..well..its all the same really.. nothing exciting! I watch Dr.House quite regularly, but, dont mind missing it. Oh my! Where has good TV gone?

All this said, cartoons kinda save my day. After a day's work, its relaxing and joyful to see the coyote still trying to get the road runner..or Sylvester trying to get Tweety. After all - Laughter is the best medicene and laugh you will!

Li'l things that make your life kewl!

2006-07-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

A pair of old faded Levis jeans, a matching Nike tee, Nike shoes and a pair of goggles - Matrix style..would certainly make you look kewl..but..thats not the "kewl" I am referring to.

I love my PC (at the office) and my laptop. There are these small utilities that make life a lot easier. Here are some of them:

1. MultiDesktop Manager - [Megascale Software] : http://www.muukka.net/multidesktop/
Like it says, it allows you to create multiple desktops and switch between them. So, you can have your work on 1 desktop and chat on others. You can create a new desktop, with a preferred Shell..or stick to Explorer.exe. You can also run applications from other user accounts, providing the needed credentials. Switch between the desktops using the CTRL+ALT+Left arrow key/Right arrow key combinations. Its a kewl little very useful thing that just costs 118KB!

2. Visual Task Tips - http://www.visualtasktips.com/ [FREE]
This is something that is built into Windows Vista..but..why wait till then..when you could have it on XP? The utility provides a thumbnail preview of the programs minimized in the taskbar. The best part is..the thumbnail preview is not static and keeps refreshing with the changes on the minimized app window. Now, thats kewl!

3. StationRipper - http://www.stationripper.com/
As the name suggests.. u can rip..or rather..record your fav internet radio station and save as MP3s. I havent made much use of this..but..I dig what I..umm..dug!

4. FlashGet - http://www.flashget.com
I am sure almost everyone must've heard about it and use it. FlashGet is a really user-friendly download manager and I cant imagine downloading stuff without it

5. Audio Converter - http://www.riverpast.com/en
I got introduced to this today. I needed to extract some audio from a MOV file for a quiz program and found the Audio Converter a good choice! Riverpast has more cool stuff too.

6. AVS TV Box - AVS Media - http://www.avsmedia.com/TVBox/index.aspx
I got a USB TV Box a few months ago had a few problems with the bundled software. AVS TV Box helped me out a great deal! You can watch TV and record your fav programs. You can also schedule recording. It supports a wide variety of devices, making it totally awesome. Try it! I wish it supported my Remote tho!

[more to come..]

SONY - MDR-J11G vs Sony MDR-E829V

2006-07-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

I am a Sony fanatic! I love music and I need quite a good amount of bass in it. "Tinnish" music is something I totally detest. So, it goes without saying that I am very choosy about my speakers and earphones. My Discman is my fav companion..yuh! u neednt even guess the brand!! Also, I prefer earphones to headphones for comfort.

I used to use the nice set of earphones..which..came with the CDman. But, the light had to shine someday and I had to walk into the Sony outlet in Chennai. The earphone stack caught my attention and I checked out a few. And then, I came across this one - the S2 MDR J11g.

There trial set sounded awesome and before I realized it, I had swiped my card for it! After that, came all the bragging and show off! The set really sounds good and cuts off all external noise. The earpiece sits very deep into you ear and the ear phone is held tight by the "C" shaped thingies. Bass freaks will love it and so did I. You could even hear the minute sounds of chimes and triangles very clearly. Sharp sounds get balanced quite well..so it doesnt hit you ear hard, giving you hours of pleasant hearing. Its a great piece to pick up if you dont want to listen to anyone or snything.

About a week ago, the wiring gave up! So, I only had one ear of sound. Rough-handling has its problems! The earphones cost about Rs.1350/-. I got a chance to find me a replacement when I went to Sony World during the weekend..and..I didnt find the S2. It left me heart-broken! However, I did want a earphone and I browsed thru the section for something that would give me the punch!

My eyes caught the Sony MDR-E829V. It didnt attract me as much as the S2. It looks very normal and didnt really impress me. I asked the dude who stood around for a good set of earphones, specially mentioning that I need bass. He pulled out the E829V and gave it to me saying "It has volume control and very good sound". Ok, it was way cheaper than the S2 at Rs.900/- that kinda made me think - what if it wasnt worth it? 900 bucks and no bass. Well, I bought it!

Boy! Oh boy! I just love these. The Sound is a lot more "balanced". It has very good bass and treble levels, which work at a scale (not uneven like the S2). Sharp sounds get evened out, so here again, it doesnt hit the ear. The punch you get when u hear Electric drums and drum effects is what I like about it! Moveover, it comes in a box, keeping the wires tangle free and secure. You can easily windup the wire into the box. The Volume control is 3 levels - Low, med and high. At high, the phones dont jar.

If you ask me which one is better of the two, I would certainly say the E829V. But, then again, it differs with every user. My boss hasn't heard music yet on this one. He loved my S2. The S2 made me feel the music and I guess it had a hand in changing my choosiness. I still love it and kinda feel bad about replacing it with another. But, hey..its a Sony! And it rocks!

Ok, so this is not a all tech speaking review. If you really need one of that kind..Google for it! :)

Will you "Flex" or "Sparkle"?

2006-06-28T02:59:00.000-07:00

So, Flex 2.0 is out! I've always been a big fan of Macromedia..ahem..Adobe. Would Flex really change the RIA world? And..why is everyone really going GA-GA over it?

As tradition goes, new products carry a lot of new features and spruce-ups - Eclipse based environment, new classes to play with, the look and feel factor, AS 3 and quite a few others. Ok, let me say that again. I did mention AS 3.0! All of us have been hanging out in the Labs to get the sneak peak and tried our hands at making something really kewl with AS 3.0. I dont know many developers (around here) who wanted to try Flex for Flex! We all talked about the new classes of AS 3.0! We all imagined what "Blaze" would be like and what we can do with it. True! that people did talk about Flex itself, but, they werent in the majority, as far as my eye could see around me. By the time Beta 2 came out, there were a lot of converts. Lots of people waited around for Flex and made sure they got good at it.

Now that Flash Professional 9 Preview has released, I wonder how many people will be downloading Flex for what it is?

One beast is out and we await the other one! Eventhough the release is quite far away. Many of us, in the community, have started discussions about "Sparkle" and Flex and where the world is going..besides..who will win the World Cup.

The early CTP (think it was Jan or Feb CTP..not sure!) of Sparkle was fantastic. I had a few performance issues, but, that didnt hamper my experience with it. Microsoft's beast did feel a lot more powerful..well..yuh..it has to be! You have the .NET engine behind it. For people like me, who dont use the .NET *.NET*, but, just hang around it, its awesome! I didnt have much time to hang around with it and try all its features..so I cant be the perfect judge of things. Anyhow, the May CTP is out and I've installed it on Vista and gave it a whirl.

The performance seems to have improved. Its a lot faster on my laptop now. Previously, I had to wait for quite a while after hitting F5 (Test project). Here are my first views:
1. Flex weighs about 140MB (approx); Expressions Interactive Designer weighs a mere 7MB (approx). The weight difference maybe because Flex carries the whole thing. To work EID, you will need to install the WinFX, which weighs 43MB.

2. Both use XML based markups to layout the interface. Its MXML for Flex and XAML for EID. Both are very similar.

3. To give it a whole lot more power - Use Flex with ColdFusion or .NET. So that's additional installation. EID has the power of the .NET Framework behind it. You've already installed WinFX (or .NET 3 as they call it!).

4. Getting around doing things is a bit more complicated in EID. They could have made it as easy as using VS.NET, but, its a lot different and seems like a mixture between VS.NET and..umm..something else.. Flex is a whole lot easier with its Eclipse based IDE.

5. Flex works on the Web. Now, thats a biggie. MS says that Future versions could be supporting the web and mobile. We'll have to wait and see. If MS does get it on the web..well..thats HUUUGEEE!

6. Working with Data : I just tried XML on EID and Flex. Its quite similar. Will only know better when I really use it and get to compare. Right now..I am not commenting on it right now.

7. Adding interactivity : Maybe I find it a bit wierd the way things are done on EID, since, I've been always with Flash. For a EID beginner, its a bit tough finding your way around creating buttons. Once you get the hang of it, its a whole lot easier..as is the case always. What I really loved and appreciated was that you can also create a DISABLED state for the button. Doing simpler things need to be kept a lot simpler on EID.

Its just the 7 of them for now. I need to really get down to comparitive studies of both to write out a better review. This is not a review, so, I'm coming back to the point now.

Flex will be a major release for Adobe till EID finally shows face. Now, that Flex 2 is out, MS can take advantage by really paying close attention to details and look at shortfalls and provide for them in EID.

As a developer and tech enthusiast, I am not going to lay down the gauntlet and say this is better than that. I love .NET and anything that provides the power of .NET would certainly make it to the top of my list. But, then again, I love Flash and dont really use Flex..so its here nor there right now! Confusing eh? Ok, I'll say it with a straight face - "When EID is out, I'll be using EID most certainly and I'll never give up Flash (atleast, I dont think I will for the moment). ITS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!"

100% Reusability?

2006-06-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

As developers, we often speak about "Reusability". We all want to make our code and components "reusable", to make life easier. Do we really have to make things "reusable"? In reality, how "reusable" are things? Well.. I am not an expert developer, but, I guess I learnt a lot from what I see around me..and.. almost 60% of what I see doesnt really fit into the reusability bracket. Ok, its time I mentioned that I am a Flash Developer. In the Flash world, we used to replicate behaviour to make things reusable back during the earlier versions. "Smart Movieclips" became an interesting concept and most people used it to a good extent. The capabilities of Flash has grown significantly, and, with MX 2004 came ActionScript 2.0.

AS 2.0 changed a lot of things - the way we thought and the way we did things. It brought in "Classes" and all those things that came with it! In a broader bracket - OOPS (Object Oriented Programming). AS 2.0 is not perfect OOPS, but, it is Object-oriented nevertheless. Anyhow, many people I know started to over use Classes and pushed it in whereever possible. "Frame Scripting", they said, wasnt the way to go, since, things have to be reusable and AS 2.0. This has been argued quite a few times and it is still misunderstood. The way a lot of people in the community use OOPS is foggy! Well.. to me, code isnt and shouldnt be 100% reusable. You need to have a good degree of flexibility in it. As human beings, the way we think about something changes every now and then. As a developer, we look at a piece of code after a week and feel that it could have been done in another, simpler and more efficient way. This is where "Flexibility" kicks in! I've seen code..which is resuable only as long as it keeps doing the same kind of things in the same way. Its more of a fireline..u cant cross it to do something a bit different. Its also about how easy it is to make it work. This is a reason I used to like the V1 components (shipped with MX) a lot more. The components were easy to use and easy to customize. It was as easy as editing a movieclip. V2 components do provide a whole lot of kewl features, but, I guess that the simpler things and things people want to do..have been made difficult.

The way I code has changed quite a lot from the time I started on my AS feeding bottle. My coding really depends on the functionality. If I have a 100 buttons that do the same thing, I'd link them to a class and make merry. If I feel that the buttons need to be dynamic in some ways, I use Properties, which can be defined. I also use Frame AS quite a lot. Parts that are solely meant for that SWF go into the frame. I am building a library of classes I reuse, so, I have it all in one place and accessible anytime. They are not always reusable as is..but..modification needed is minimal. Well, this wouldnt be the way you might look at it..lets say, as a web developer or an RIA developer. In my line of work, it isnt quite often that you can reuse a whole class, for example. Specification and functionality can differ quite a lot. It sometimes is easier to create from scratch than customize code. Common behaviours, custom events and functions that are common to all projects are being reused. We also reuse code internally within the product. But, here again, this code falls behind the fireline. You maynot be able to use it for other projects that vary in features and functionality
quite a lot.

So, code needs to be Reusable and Flexible. It doesnt mean that you need to use AS 2.0 to make things REUSABLE! Smart Clips wasnt AS 2.0!! It was Frame Script all the way! I am not trying to go back in my ways. Just trying to say.. use 'em both in the right way!

Vistaaaaaaa

2006-06-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

I know I've left the Office 2K7 review at about 5%. There's so much left to say about it. I am planning on making it into episodes and concentrating on each component (word, Excel, Outlook..). I guess that would be taking a bit of time, now that I've got my hands on "Vista Beta 2".

I havent still completed my own download of it. Its about 30% done. One of my friends got it and passed it on. Well.. so I went ahead and installed on my laptop (Acer 3002NLC - AMD Sempron, 512MB RAM, 40GBHDD). I didnt want to disturb the XP partition, so, I installed it onto a different partition.

I've installed about 3 previous builds of Vista on the same laptop..and..I was kinda heartbroken after the last build - it was really slow and crashed quite a lot. Ofcourse, it was much stabler than the ones before. Anyhow, the beta 2 seemed a lot better with its cleaner installers. It took me about 90mins to install it.

Once it was done, my heart almost stopped working. It wasnt taking my display driver (SiS760GX) as plug n'play..so I had no display. I had to just switch off the whole thing and head to bed! I dont have a monitor with me to plug it in and check..so I had to wait till morning!

The morning came..and I took the laptop to the office. Plugged it into the IBM monitor I have at my desk.. whaddaya know? Vista booted up nicely! It all looked quite good..but..my Laptop's monitor was still..Lifeless!

Determined to make it work, I tried installing the drivers in various ways..nothing seemed to work. Finally, I got the idea to run the Driver installer in WinXP compatibilty mode. The installer ran once again..and it kinda looked as if it was unsure about installing the stuff. But, then, it did..very luckily and that still runs after 3-4 reboots. I'm smiling again!

What I thought would be a sticky issue once again..with Vista booting slowly and crashing would all disappear soon! I found it to be very stable and much much much faster. Not many big changes interface wise. There are a few things I have noticed so far..and..here's a list of them:
1. Nutty Defender popup : The previous builds had a nutty popup every time you ran..anything almost! If you have the UAC turned OFF, pop goes the weasel! You wont be asked questions anymore!

2. UAC : This was something that played a major role in breaking my heart in the previous build. I wasnt even able to run my Net Dialer Client. So, my activation ran out! When I learnt of that there was an option in the User Account Management Console to turn it off..I was happy to turn it off. Well, its useful for sure, but, I am not on a network and I am the only person who uses my Laptop!

3. Cleaner install : Well, the installer is the first thing you notice! It has improved quite a lot in all sorts of ways. More detailed info is available on whats happening - Copying files, expanding files..etc.. Thats nice!

4. Bootscreen : It still doesnt have a Vista logo..just the little progress bar. Looks silly!

5. Bootup time : The previous build took so much time, that, I could make a cup of tea. Beta 2 is much faster booting up..BIG STEP in the right direction!

6. The experience : Performance improvements are something you'd really notice from the earlier builds. Its much faster and smoother. Finally, we get to see atleast some of those transistions! I dont really have a "Vista compatible" PC, so, I guess I am lucky enough to be able to see atleast some effects/transistions etc..

7. Installing Updates : I dont know if this is new..but..like the windows update window. Its neat and has quite a lot of details like Update History etc. Very handy for someone like me who doesnt update too often.
Once the updates were installed, the box to restart the machine came up and I found another kewl addition. You can now set the time for the reminder..so..it doesnt popup every few seconds saying that the machine needs to be restarted! The maximum time is 4hrs.

Well, this is what I've got so far! I'll update the review as I discover stuff - good or bad!

Its all Dynamic!

2006-06-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

The "Layout" days are finally over! The V6 of my site has now got a face. My ideas with the V5, which is, currently online and still half-baked, didnt spark well enough. I had some troubles with the structure and flexibiltiy it allowed...plus.. the Data Management System, which, I had created for it, wasnt good enough.

I've scrapped the good old structure that I had been following for quite sometime now, and, made a totally new one. The new structure works on "feeds". All the information - text and images come to it as XML feeds and fits into the layout, which, basically speaking, is just a skeleton. ASP.NET will still be there in the background to make management easier. Yeah, this is normal stuff that people do and very close to what I have been doing so far with my sites. What really takes the cake is the CMS that I've already started working on..again..created using Flash and ASP.NET. It would allow me to update the feeds and set them as "active" and "inactive". "Inactive" feeds will be archived automatically. Its nothing special really! The coding part is very simple and all possible without much effort or too much thinking.

I've scrapped plans of putting up my Blog into the site. The simpler and more ideal thing to do, would be, to aggregate this blog as an RSS feed. I havent really decided on the sections yet. It would be more in terms of user preferences. So, Regular Menu is also being scrapped, for a more suitable option.

One thing is for sure..there will be an "Image Gallery"!

Its all been planned, mouse to the mouse pad.. I just need to get on with the coding. :)

"fanaa"-ed!

2006-06-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

So we went for a movie yesterday! It wasnt Da Vinci Code..which comes to theatres here today, by the way. The movie wasn't really Star Wars type. It was a typical Bollywood flick..keeping to all its usual masala - songs, dances, dress changing, comedy etc.. On my scale, it would make 2/10 and I would suggest you go see it..only if..only if..u are totally bored and are very desperate to see a movie and live a theatre experience.

If you are wondering what "Fanaa" means, it means "destroyed in love". Its an Aamir Khan, Kajol starrer. Kajol's a blind Kashmiri girl and Aamir is a "terrorist on a mission". I am not going to play story teller here..maybe that would make u go see the movie!

First up, the thing I noticed - usually the heroine's friends look good...they still have silly names - Fatty (for Fathima) and Bobo! Strangely, they dont appear after the first part of the movie. The music is good and luckily the speakers in the theatre didnt sound flat and "trebled"! I liked the "Moula" track. Its seems to become a trend to have guitar riffs in songs these days..which is kewl! I also liked the patriotic dance track - not just the music, but also the picturization. The locations and shots are kewl too.

Well, if you are a "shayari" fan, it has some nice ones - some easy to understand and some others that will make you go buy that book you always wanted - "Understanding Shayarii for Dummies". There were some nice ones that I thought - I must remember this to quote in my impress my girlfriend ;-) But..I dont remember any! Would that go and make me see the movie? Well..uhh..NOPE!

Funny ones:
Movies have their funny moments.. not comedy scenes..like..for instance...
1. Once Kajol learns that Aamir is the wanted terrorist, she SOSes the military people via radio. They tell her - "we'll arrive tomorrow morning"..uhhh?
2. Ok, so the dude has killed a person and has come home. You know that he is a terrorist..what do u do, jack? what do u do? Umm..lets see..I drive to radio the military officials with my kid and wait there! Surely, my hubby is going to show up there..and..by the way..my hubby is the terrorist!
3. Heros always run their distance!
4. Right after an eye operation, doctors ask you to identify dead bodies?
5. Ahh yes and the best one - Terrorists use cellphones and radios to update information..like "I am having the trigger (aka detonator for the nuke!) and I will meet u at Blah place". They also call each other using real names..not code words.

Ok, I am not going to say these things anymore..I am hoping that'll get u to watch the flick! :)

Office "12" : At first glance

2006-06-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

After freeing up quite a bit of space on my Windows partition, I was able to finally install Office 2007 aka "Office 12". It takes a whopping 1.3gig of space to install Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Infopath, Outlook and all the other stuff that come with it.

It was love at first sight. The interface looks a lot kewler..no more drab formy looks! The interface is quite different from the previous versions, but, its very easy to get used to it. Basically, the old Menu style has been replaced with a more "tabbed layout".

Here are a few things I noticed at first glance:
1. Missing "File" menu : The first thing I noticed was the missing "File" menu, in its place was.. "Home". I also noticed the round button with the office logo on it, sitting at the top left corner of the screen...clicked it..and I smiled..I found the "File" menu! Strangely, Outlook still has the File menu in the main screen! When you compose a New message..it doesnt!

2. The "ALT" key effect : When you press and hold the ALT key on Windows apps, the Underline under the letters you need to press with ALT gets visible. Pressing the ALT key in Office 2K7 makes these tiny boxes containing the combination letters visible. It stays till u press ALT again.

3. Live Preview : So, now u can see what a font looks like before really using it.

4. Document File size : I didnt believe it when I read about it, so, I tried out a "hello world experiment". Typed "hello World" on an empty page in word and saved it using both 2K3 and 2K7 versions. 2K3 doc filesize - 19.5KB and 2K7 docx file size - 9.47KB.

5. Zoom : You also have a zoom slider at the right hand side bottom of the screen.

6. Help : The "Help" menu also has been popped out of the menubar. Its now a small blue round button located just below the "x" (close) button.

One funny thing I found.. the interfaces for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access are laid out in a similar way, but, Outlook is a "mixed bag" - it has a mix of both the old style (as in previous versions) and the new kewl blue style!

These are just somethings I found at my first glance. I will be adding more parts to the review, when I really play around with it.

Welome to The Grid

2006-05-31T04:10:00.000-07:00

What if the whole world was one? What if we could do what we do in one place..anywhere else? What if sharing was limitless? what if... Welcome to The Grid!

The Internet has been around for ages now and it has changed significantly to make information sharing so easy and simple. Pushing the boundaries a lot further, we are coming to an age that is all about "being mobile" with everything located centrally, so that, what you require is always available, it doesnt matter what kind of device you will be using to access the information. The reality is not so distant. With major players like Microsoft and Google working on it, you can guarantee that life is going to change.

Microsoft LiveDrive - With their immense resources, financial backing and server farms..well..the giants will be offering huge amounts of online storage that you could use to store any kind of data.

Google Lighthouse Project - Folks at Google are always upto something and if Lighthouse is to become a reality..well..bye bye PCs with 80gig HDDs. They say that the storage will be infinite. Imagine the amount of data you could put in there!

I'm sure more will jump into the bandwagon as time goes on. There are so many other things that are coming up like the whole set of "Live ideas" from MS and all sorts of things from Google, that, aims at making you and your world totally mobile.

We were having a discussion about such things in the morning today..and..one of my friends remarked - Who knows when all this will really kick some serious dust? Net connectivity is not fast enough. There are two or three things here that I could mention:
1. Back during the 80s and 90s, we were browsing at 36KBPS. Now, we have atleast 56KBPS on dialups and much more on broadband. Its going to become faster and cheaper

2. When one thing changes, complimenting technologies always change. Once again, back during the 80s and 90s, when HTML pages ruled the roost, we didnt really need great speeds..and..once the characteristic of content changed. Speeds increased!

3. The Speed bracket is always on the increase, so it should certainly become much faster.

Well, all this seems to be a very rosy picture right now. There is a lot to be scared of:
1. Information becoming impersonal - If all your private info is located somewhere, someone else can always make use of it. It happens now. You give your email ID to Company X, you get emails from so many! The Privacy Policies need to be reframed by the company and we, as users, need to really make sure that we read and understand what we are getting into
2. Security - The type of attacks are going to evolve to become much more scary! Security always needs to be beefed up. One flaw in the whole thing may destroy data belonging to so many people.
3. File sharing - If its going to be like being on our own LAN, where, users can give rights to other users to access files? well, laws on file sharing will go to hell!

The companies who are already in it, most certainly, have a lot to think about and implement. They should be ready for it..and we should be ready to change!

Bloggin' is kewl again!

2006-05-30T23:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am back! Its almost a year since I said my "astalavista baby!" to blogging.