Why Should you leave your Website to a design agency & not a programming den?

Well. Self promotion, you may call it, but yes, i run a interactive design agency and i can always provide you facts which will increase my business aka design, information architecture. This post from the consumerwebwatch, identifies how a website is being rated by the consumers...and not all those techies sitting with their laptop to point out that last 2 pixel adjustment on your right. Have a lookConsumer WebWatch: How Consumers and Experts Rate Credibility on the Web

HTML is Dead...so What is the alternative?

I have been predicting the death of HTML as a basic web tier for last 3-4 years, as HTML was not created for WWW but for distributed publishing. This article in boxes & arrows, pretty clearly explains the same. They have given due respect to Flash, Java and along with not so popular few more technologies including the one from MIT and and Java XML based language.HTML's Time is Over. Let's Move On.

Running around

Sorry, wont be writing things for next 1 week, as i am already busy with 3 assignments and just added 2 more into that kitty. cya a week later.

Design Practices on the Web

Need to know how many people design for 800 X 600 and 1024 X 768 ? Want to know the color, link color, active color treatment given broadly by the designers & accepted by the users ? How to work on the common elements in an eCommerce Chart program ? If you are searching all the above in google, Wait a second, enough, press the "stop" button and relax.

This website has a unique way of content matching & research facts listed based on the present web scenario. Dont mistake this for the web-standard or for W3C recommendations. This is not for that. This site researches on the present pattern of web design across the web and presents you under various titles about the design techniques used worldwide. This can used as a better reference site, if you would like to convenice your client for the design you are in. Have a look. Web Design Practices

Future of Flash MX

This is one interview, you can take an hour's leave from your official work and concentrate. At last, good guys at Community MX pulled the words from the lion's mouth, aka, Lucian Beebe, Senior Product Manager at Macromedia looking after Flash. read the Interview: The Future of Flash MX

Flash MX 2004 Patch Update

The first patch in the history of Macromedia Flash is arrived, for FMX04. Now, we can proudly call MM is rubbing its shoulders with MS by providing application patches in a continuous note. This update was updated to me from Collin Moock 's update. This update safeguards from some 34 crash fixes. Take the update from here. and also read the release notes also for clear understanding of what is fixed.

Digital Magazines

There are quite no. of attempts have been made in the front of digital magazines, ezines are ubiquitious on the web. This serviceZinio takes the concept a bit further, by providing digital alternatives for the print magazines. The magazines includes MIT Review, Digit, MacWorld and whole lot of great magazines which can be downloaded using their proprietary download manager.

There are a few free sample magazines up for download, i am downloading the latest Digit and the MIT review for a preview of how this works. This is not exactly a new concept for the web for reading online magazines, but not all top magazines under one website. Btw, This is a legal service and dont expect any crack from me to get into this service.

Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web

Why is everyone suddenly talks about standards, cross-platform compatibility & cross-browser references. Going thru the document for Digital Content Management & Handling by Patricia Seybold group, in the morning, i have searched a few things how things are getting organised first. I have landed up @ Boxes & Arrows for a documentation and found this extremely informative book link.Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web Official Book Site

I recommend anyone to download their sample chapter and pay attention to the interesting study on How Men & Women navigate in the word scenario. Must read for anyone in the interactive & new media user interaction.

Contextual Mktg Vs. Behavioral Mktg

Going thru' the ad:tech's multitude personality for next generation marketing in the areas of online, search engine, interactive, this interview throws some unique insights about the future of contextual & behavioral marketing and how they differ.

Interesting facts & examples filled thru' out the interview. Must read if you think you are for the next generation of marketing science. Interview w/The Claria Corp.’s Scott Eagle Their website claria has good amount of information about ad vehicles, rates etc.

But the worrying fact is that will people still accept Pop-Ups , Pop Upper or Pop Under and a whole lot of Pop varieties for advertising. For me, it is disgusting when someone trying to take my attention from the information i read on. If you are an avid new media personality, you will have enough toolset in your machine to protect Pop-Ups [like the Google's top bar Pop Up Killer]. With that available, we need to seriously identify in-site advertising promotions than taking information outside.

Livemotion is Dead

It's now become Official. Livemotion, touted as the Flash killer from Adobe is officially dead. With their latest press release says that Adobe will no longer develop Livemotion and LM 2.0 is the final version and the present customers will be supported till March 31,2004. Which draws the least known fight for Flash from Adobe is officially lost in favor of MM.Livemotion is Dead

What makes worrying is not just the death of a program from a company like Adobe, if we go thru' their product history, there are products like Streamline, Dimensions and others are dead or not supported for their lifetime. MM is also as their own stories of death in the form of Aftershock, Res, Generator [ i forgot their first attempt to beat PSD] and quite a few others.

This finally draws to the battle edge between MM & MS now, ofcourse, MS will launch their "Sparkle" in years to come. Till such time, there is more to code in the form of Flash MX 2004, Flash remoting, Comm. Server from MM.

Naduram Godse - The Saviour of Hindus????

No. I am turning to be a pro-brahmin or RSS. When snipping thru' badri's blog [ aha, one man finally talks about ebooks in tamil ] i come across this, the sub-altern history of India. Gandhi was murdered by Godse - This is history. To protect Hindus & Hindutva, Gandhi was sacrificed for Hindu matha - Sub altern history.

"If devotion to one's country amounts to a sin, I admit I have committed that sin. If it is meritorious, I humbly claim the merit thereof. I fully and confidently believe that if there be any other court of justice beyond the one founded by the mortals, my act will not be taken as unjust. If after the death there be no such place to reach or to go, there is nothing to be said. I have resorted to the action I did purely for the benefit of the humanity. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to lakhs of Hindus." Interesting Read about the mindset of Godse & others, who assasinated Mr.M.K. Gandhi [and not Mahatma Gandhi.] Get this full text here.

Matrix Revolutions - the Rise of the East

In continuation with our unaltered cult following the Matrix Triology finally comes to an end. "Every beginning has an end. and Every end will create a new beginning". Unlike its earlier versions, Matrix Revolutions is more about a theoretical view of the system of the matrix.

Coming out of the theater [Oh i watched the second show in its worldwide premiere anyway] the adrenalin rush you had for the Ist part is missing. The first part has all the credentials to pull me, for the sequels, but ended purely in vain, that by initiating a deep discussion about existence & purpose of existence will slowly paved way to Hollywood's merchandise & commercial interest by the Wachokisi brothers. Overall, it can be made still better. We expect that there will be memorable fight sequence [the first & the clones of Agent Smith in the second] but unfortunately, the climax ends abruptly.

Things which really made me celebrated about this blockbuster movie are:

1. first time, Hollywood was taught about the eastern philosophy & mystery.
2. I remember, telling my friend, when we are out of our first experience with Matrix, that the movie is inspired by Bhagavat Gita [ Maya is the core word, around which the entire world runs.
3. Both I,II & III illustrates, the fast moving traditional Chinese stunt sequences and a respect for god & elders. Unlike blockbuster hollywood movies, this movies never utters one "f***" word in its entire version. Vedas Chanting & the divine word "OM & Shanthi" is used in the end of the titles. Of course, before this movie itself, movies like "Eyes Wide Shut" has used vedic renderings, but purely for the musical & sensationl purposes and not with a point.
4. This part, Revolutions, has 15 minutes screen presence of an Indian Software Professional [ His wife name is Kamla. Will you believe it, The movie is not done by an Indian, and very rarely I came across a Indianish name in their credits]. This makes a clear shift of mindset in the US & the Western countries. The Indian is depicted as a high skilled software professional, an endorsement in a hollywood blockbuster movie. The words "Karma" & "Aathma" are spoken with Neo about the real meaning of life.
5. Unlike those, patriotic western blockbusters, the hero is not back to french kiss is lover. Here every one is dead. There is one dialogue, which summarises the entire experience in the end, when the Oracle tells the Architect, will there be another war and he says i am not human and dont expect things like that.
6. Finally a movie, which strongly commits, values, karma, unscientifical truths is accepted & appreciated in the West.

There was a funny thing. When Morpheous refers about Oracle, as she knows everything, i can here a murmur in my back, where is Microsoft? they should be knowing everything. Final Verdict, This movie will be commercially successful & bring tonnes of $$$ but failed in satisfying a cult group.

Google Deskbar - Searching without Browser

Just released. Get this desktop app, without opening the Browser. Make this as a must download.Google Deskbar

Will Microsoft Kill Macromedia & Flash

Days due before the launch of the much hyped "longhorn", the next gen. OS, as proclaimed by Microsoft, few news have gossiped about how Microsoft looks at companies & verticals.

This is an exerpts from the article:

Top developers at Microsoft are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia.

Code-named "Sparkle," the tools under development would be integrated with Microsoft's .NET (define) runtime environment. That would ultimately mean developers could have Flash- and Director-like animation and graphics tools ready-built for them soon after Longhorn hits the marketplace.

One source familiar with the project, who saw examples of the "Sparkle" toolset integrated with Microsoft's C# (define), said early prototypes have given rise to talk of its potential as a "Flashkiller" or even a "Director-killer," referring to Macromedia's popular Flash animation software and Director tool, which is best known for building small animations for CDs.

I my eariler post, i referred about the New IE which shld be out by next year, will have an Active Content details, which though MM claims to found a roundabout, will started to spell trouble for Flash & shockwave. Going thru this entire article, this time, unlike before, MS is serious about taking Flash head on. If you can understand why MS is serious, just look at the installed base of Flash Players and MM has a long lasting tie-up with Apple, QuickTime-where Flash is fully integrated with their latest builds both from Apple & MM.

But going by the History, MS has never been great in Multimedia & Graphics. Great Example is Softimage, which was originally a MS company, later sold to Avid and now became a standard in 3D dynamics.

Btw, Where do MS get all these funky project code names OS [longhorn], SQL Server [Yukon], Visual Studio.NET (Whidbey), Aero (user interface for longhorn for 3D capabilities). Well. the verdict will be out by March 2004 till such time, there is Flash MX 2004 and the all new, powerful, ActionScript 2.0. Read the entire article here.

100 Years of Innovation

3 years after, just now i realised that we have crossed a millennium. [Tube light thought ;-) ] and trying to find the answer for what we have achieved in last 100 years over the before 1900 years A.D, i have been searching for a resource quite considerably. Months of search finally landed up here. Look at this compilation by the renowed TIME magazine for celebrating the Ideas as " A Brief History of THE BIG THING" here

Finally I have landed up the order, which i have been working on for a year. YES. Now I am working for the first MNC client [ Can we call him as a Fortune 500 and remove the last zero client!!]. Things are going great. More projects are on the anvil. I am running on a tight schedule finally

WEB is changing

With a loss of $500 millon, now Microsoft wants to take up a revenge on the user for the case they lost it sometime before.
What it does?
It objects all Active X control by throwing a pop up window. In the future version of Internet Explorer, currently due out early next year, the browser prompts visitors to confirm that they want to execute each active content item on a page.

That means, there will be a hoards of pop-ups for Macromedia Flash, Real Player, Quick Time, Java and countless Active X controls which are available today. Macromedia has given a clean information & how they want to protect their turf with this. This is referred by MM as Active Content.Macromedia - Active Content FAQ - read this full FAQ and find out how to protect future proof your visitors without annoying popups.