VerticalPixels ::

Distributing Flash lite as .sis files for Symbian devices

2007-12-06T10:26:00.000+08:00

Treating your Flash lite applications like any other symbian application is not an usual developer's fortune. I just read thru an article which allows Flashlite developers to package flashlite content into the newly relased Nokia Widgets.

Riku Salminen has put in some good piece of information in the nokia wiki: Check it out!

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Setting up Apple XServe and QTSS

2007-03-29T15:28:00.000+08:00

Setting up a production environment is something that I just put my hands into and its a wee bit tricky, especially when it comes to understanding all the interesting terms associated with the server setup process.

I had done a lot of study along with a friend and guru: Philippe L. while setting this entire solution up. So, thought of noting down all the interesting links which I got our small production environment to be up and going!

A good step-by-step description of the entire setup - AFP548.com
Setting up mod_jk for Apache and Tomcat - tomcat.apache.org
A good article on setting up the QTSS - soundscreen.com
Tips on preparing a streaming video - davemoore.org

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How do you make money going Open Source

2007-03-27T15:25:00.000+08:00

Well, I have been bogged down by this thought for over years. How can someone put in all their time and effort and even money to develop interesting solutions and then offer it free for the world to use it! How does the offer benefit the developers?

Well, I managed to get a good insight from an article written by Con Zymaris - "How to make money from Open Source". A beautiful article that gives you a good perspective into gaining from offering Free!

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Some great OpenSource networking tools

2007-03-27T15:20:00.000+08:00

There are plenty of them in the market. But few of these have a good recognition associated with it. I am listing down a few tools which I found to have been suggested by the top nerds.

- GroundWork
- Hyperic
- Zenoss

You decide the best!

There is another good open source utility that I came across that could help you in providing a complete provisioning solution to your datacenter needs:

- opoenQRM

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Some new interesting apps to ponder on

2006-12-11T15:01:00.000+08:00

There are some very interesting applications that has been selected at the Connected Innovators programme. A good article for the same has been put up on TechCrunch. You can read it at <techcrunch.com>

Listed below are the few of those interesting applications:

- Sharpcast
- Attensa
- Ether
- Lifeio
- Netvibes
- PostApp
- ProtoMobl
- SoonR
- StumbleUpon
- Vpod.tv
- Webaroo
- ZiXXo

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Tweek the Firefox - Google Search your way : Toolbox

2006-11-05T08:37:00.000+08:00

With Firefox plugging in the search feature (basically our ever favorite - Google search) into the browser, searching has become so much easier and fun! Guess we all agree with this fact! Incidentally, there is no options available on the browser to customize the search the way you want it.

Here is a neat article on Firefox Search Bar hack! <labnol.blogspot.com>

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A rich interface for the squeezable "smart" time piece!

2006-10-30T00:08:00.000+08:00

Flash Lite has already made its note on mobile phones to create rich media applications. It has made its mark on embedded devices like camera interfaces, MP3 players, Car navigations systems, etc. And we have one more interesting device following the footsteps : A smart clock - Chumby.

The alarm clock apart from showing time and alert you of the set alarm, it has a built in Wi-Fi and has an interface built on Flash Lite 2. It is built on open source technologies except that the interface element is not. You can download your favourite music, news, photos, etc from the internet. What more, it has a built in webserver, phew!

Read more on the "Chumby"!

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Best Practices to safe-guard your source code!

2006-10-24T18:59:00.000+08:00

While coding we usually end up so worked out and stuck with an interesting work-around for the code issue, that we keep building our good own logic, finally to find that the code works no more. Most of the time this falls back into a non-working code which was working prior to this issue and you would have prayed that you had the good sense to back up the earlier code. Or even if you backed up your code, you forgot what name you had used for the code back-up file. And if that is not all, you might have accidentally deleted the folder which contained the working code to clean off your over cluttered workstation memory. This is very often seen in a software development practise.

There is a good article written by Eric Sink on how to control your source codes! <Read more>

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Mobile Content Development Platforms

2006-10-19T13:18:00.000+08:00

The mobile content industry is all set to strike on all cylinders very soon. A lot of web specialists are gradually pacing towards their representations on the mobile space.

With GPRS and Wi-Fi connected mobile and PDA phones gaining popularity, there is a huge market for the Content Provider industry as well as the Content Development Platforms.

Using Content Development Platforms, content providers can easily develop mobile applications to sell their content to the mass. Some big and emerging names in the Content Development Platforms are :

- Adobe Flash Lite (specialises in Mobile application development)
- Streamezzo (specialises in quick streaming media)
- Mophun (mobile gaming platforms)
- Mobile Content Framework (customised AJAX widgets for mobile devices)

And there are a few that I know are in the process of development. We will soon be seeing a hot competition on the mobile content arena.

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Challenging the giants: Gnash

2006-10-19T00:36:00.000+08:00

When we talk of rich interactive applications on the internet, Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash Player for web browsers comes to our mind. Over the years, Flash Player has found its way into almost 98% of the popular web browsers, but is still a proprietary Adobe product.

A new open source development is on to unfold a player to play the richness of the web's media interfaces. Keep a watch on this new development from the Free Software Foundation group. The draw back at this moment is that it just supports only upto the features listed under Flash Player 7. There is a lot that our friends at FSF have to work on to make this project a big success.

For more information: < Gnash project >

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The World Browser

2006-10-18T23:58:00.000+08:00

I installed this browser today. The file size is pretty small and just takes a few seconds to install and automatically import my firefox favourites to this new browser.

The interface design is very soothing and a big 5 to the UI designers. CSS and JavaScript support requires improvement. Check this site (http://www.sxc.hu/) on Firefox and World Browser (psst, you may also check it on IE). You will see the difference and the time it takes to load the page.

Well, since this is still in its beta stages, there will definitely be some good improvements to this new project.

Watch out : < ioage.com >

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Java SWING based Flash Application GUI Framework

2006-10-18T23:24:00.000+08:00

There is no hard and fast policy to follow as far as application GUI frameworks are concerned. It always depends on what type and kind of application you plan to build and what would help you to scale and improve the application in future.

There are a lot of known application frameworks but this one is new and fresh out of the box. Check out the Java Swing based application GUI framework for Flash based applications. The ASWing Flash ActionScript GUI framework helps you to use classes similar to Java Swings. It defines a set of ready-to-use libraries which you can use to enhance the experience of your Flash Media Applications.

For more information on ASWing < aswing.org >
Check out a charting application UI done using ASWing < dcook.org >

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Interesting Blogs on upcoming mobile technologies

2006-09-26T10:56:00.000+08:00

Mobile solutions are evolving and so is its technology. Like the early Web boom, we have the mobile era coming soon. As new platforms and new technologies in the mobile space come into light, I found these very interesting blogs where you could find interesting articles in the mobile world!

- The PonderingPrimates (one of my favorites)
- Mobile-Digest (Cool new product information)
- Mobile Trends
- Vision Mobile/blog
- ActionScript.it/mobile
- Mike Krisher's blog
- Mobile Burn
- beMobility
- mobile-weblog
- Antony's blog
- Textually.org
- S60tips.com
- SalesForce blog
- Mobile Views

Please do keep looking at this space. I will update this as and when I bump into these interesting pieces of information gathered from the "WORLD!"

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Open source tools that you may have asked for:

2006-09-25T20:35:00.000+08:00

The DebianHelp guyz have collected a good bit of information on the open source tools available on the web. This is a very decent list of information and thanks to this collection, it will make googling a bit more simpler!

Please find this vast repository of information here : <debianHelp/tools>

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Business uses of AJAX

2006-07-18T22:48:00.000+08:00

I happened to ponder into this site which provides an interesting set of points which relates to the business uses of AJAX. I support the comment posted by Haytham on this page. It is so true that although AJAX has brought in a big leap on the UI front, but there is a lot of improvements required on the complexity in the development of applications using AJAX and on the manageability front.

Read more @ pathf.com/agileajax

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Streamezzo: A new platform for mobile client server applications

2006-06-22T22:46:00.000+08:00

I was bedazzled to see the performance of the rich user interface on the mobile phone display screen when I visited the Streamezzo booth in CommunicAsia2006 being held in Singapore. They boast of an excellent platform where content providers could build applications for various services to be offered to the end users using Java and XML. They also did talk of giving tough competition to FlashLite applications. We would definitely see more of this in the days to come.

There is a whole gamut of services that one could offer using this platform. On the client mobile phone, a 50 KB engine goes in as a base installation to experience the long list of services hosted by different content providers on a subscription based model. They have services varying from Weather services, movie previews, live news, online games, online music, chats, discussions, etc.

Currently, the applications are said to be supported on Symbian, Java enabled and Microsoft mobile platforms.

For more information check out: www.streamezzo.com

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Interface Design for Mobile Applications

2006-04-25T07:34:00.000+08:00

There is a huge difference when you switch from a Web based appliction interface design to the small 140x120 pixels Mobile interface design. You should be high on the creative front to give that much required "design touch" when it comes to desiging interfaces on these small devices.

These are a few good articles that I came across for a designing great mobile interfaces.

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AJAX on mobiles

2006-04-07T11:17:00.000+08:00

While working on an interactive mobile application, I thought over the use of AJAX in mobile devices. I came across this wonderful article from Ajit Jaokar (futuretext.com). He is an innovator and a pioneer in the mobile data industry.

This article on AJAX on mobile devices caught my attention with the vivid details provided on how AJAX could well be the future prefered application platform for mobile devices. I echo his comments on the gaming industry gaining priority on mobile devices as compared to interactive applications. With the advancement in technologies, we hope to see many interesting applications embedded in mobile devices.

The article: ajax on mobile
Some more of his interesting articles on mobile applications: opengardensblog.futuretext.com

Another good article on AJAX for mobiles: ajaxian.com

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Experience the power of video on the web

2006-03-26T18:45:00.000+08:00

Isn't it amazing if you could watch movies, albums, talk shows, documentaries as clear as switching on your Television box. It is possible now through this Australia based company Vividas.

It is amazing to note the fullscreen view of the video coming to you on the web. Well, the company haven't let the solution out, but it seem to be using Java Applets to display the streaming video. For video compression, they seem to be using on2 technologies.

To view a few mindblowing video trailers and advertisement, please follow the links below:
Note: To view the video, you have to say yes to the security check pop-up.

- vividas.com/Extra Dry (My Favourite!)
- vividas.com/Ford Sensis
- vividas.com/BigAd
- And lots more here.

There is also one more technology which is working on some powerful research into bringing streaming video over the internet. Check it out: akamai.com

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Chosing the best FLV encoder

2006-02-23T08:50:00.000+08:00

I was recently working on a few video demos to be streamed using Adobe Flash. During some thorough research on the web for a good FLV converter, I came across this article from: <mediacollege.com>. A very good article providing a comparison between Flash 8 video Converter, Flix Pro, Sorenson Squeeze.

Please read the same here: <mediacollege.com/flashvideoencoder>

And for all those who like to get their video conversion done with a pretty good quality, I found this utility to be very useful: <rivavx.com>. What more, it is FREE to use. But please do not forget to donate for all the hard work put behind this project.

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Chris Baum and User Experience

2006-01-30T12:19:00.000+08:00

A very good blog on User Experience by Chris Baum <cbaum.blogspot>. I especially liked his article on "Adapt or die" <adapt or die> and an other one on "User Experience As Sustainable Advantage" <user experience>.

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MobiTV

2006-01-30T11:59:00.000+08:00

This is an interesting piece rocking the world of mobile communication. Watch out on TV on your mobile devices <mobitv.com>

Watch this interesting video: <mobitv/video>

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Open Source Vector Graphic Tool

2005-12-20T09:48:00.000+08:00

There are a quite a few vector graphics editor in the market. I have been using Macromedia(Adobe) Flash IDE for most of the vector graphics. Adobe Illustrator is another tool which is quiete flexible when it comes to vector drawings. There are a few more like: Macromedia Freehand, Corel Draw, Xara X, etc.

There is this open source tool called "InkScape" that I queite liked. The design work area is huge. There are some good features that you could play with. It also provides connectors which could be used to generate flow diagrams.

Website: Inkscape.com
Download: Inkscape.com/downloads
ScreenShots: Inkscape.com/screenshots

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Its all about webservices

2005-11-30T10:42:00.000+08:00

Web services have been the in-thing since a long time now. It is a piece of code which is made available for remote users to use the services in an application over the internet. These web based services are independant of .....can be written using Java, .net, PHP, ColdFusion, etc. Lot of companies are getting their services for public access. Services like eBay.com auction services, Google search services, amazon.com ecommerce services are some of the examples of webservices provided by companies. A host of webservices are also provided by <xmethods>.

Webservices are implemented in XML. Here are some technical jargons of webservices :

SOAP : Basically, SOAP is an "envelope" for transferring information between client/server applications
WSDL: WSDL provides the defintion of SOAP envelopes and functions
UDDI: UDDI is a registry for looking up for services something like the yellow pages of web services.

Links to a few good resources to get yourself started with developing webservices are given below.

Understanding webservice: <alistapart.com> & <php.net>

Writing web services using:
- [.net] : <ondotnet.com>
- [Java]: <theserverside.com>
- [PHP]:
- [ColdFusion]:<macromedia.com>
- [AppleScript & PERL]: <apple.com>

- Resources on Webservices <xml.com>
- Webservices Magazine: <webservicesarchitect.com>

There is an interesting article on making your J2EE applications web service ready. For further information visit <theserverside.com>

A good article on webservices with Axis @ <javaboutique.com>

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Middleware 2005 Conference (28th Nov - 2nd Dec)

2005-11-29T15:18:00.000+08:00

An interesting seminar on the recent advancement and important inventions in middleware technologies.

For further information and registration: <objectweb.org>

A few opensource middleware projects that you might want to browse: <objectweb.org/projectlist>

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Multiuser Server for Flash Clients

2005-11-29T10:11:00.000+08:00

This is yet another link to establish your communication channel. If you are looking at building a client-server application that requires a live chat session, real time messaging and serialisation features, real time white board sharing, multiuser game platform and there are a huge lot of utilities that you could think of to create a multiuser sharing environment with your flash client.

What more? It is an open source! So, you can get on to the drawing board right away!

To get further details on the features : <oregano-server/features>
Downloads: <oregano-server/downloads>

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What is the big hype about AJAX?

2005-11-23T08:27:00.000+08:00

AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. As simple as that. It is a programming environment in which we use a group of technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML to create some truly userfriendly web based interfaces.

As of now, the normal HTML (or PHP or JSP or ASP) pages could not stand to the user's usability expectations as the page dissapears to bring to you an annoying blank screen on the click of a button in the browser based application. AJAX comes up with a solution to maintain the page on the screen as it is, while retrieving the relevant data on the click of the submit button.

How does AJAX get this to work?

Normally, when a request is made on a web application, the request is sent to the server and the requested page along with the data is brought back from the server and repainted on to the browser screen. The response from the server may take some time depending on the bandwidth.

What AJAX does is, any request to the user action is handled on the client side itself. The AJAX engine at the client side handles simple processes like small validations, manipulating data using the client cache, and the application navigation, so that for such simple tasks the server calls could be avoided and hence increase the user experience with less annoyance.

Now when it comes to retrieving complex data from the server, AJAX makes asynchronous calls to the server and transfers the requested data using XML or SOAP calls. In this way, the user interface remains as it is on the screen. To improve user interaction, one may use a preloader while retrieving data, which will tell the user that a request is being made. Isn't this much more interactive than showing the user a blank screen and the user is left wondering as to what is happening?

So in a nutshell, AJAX greatly reduces server calls hence increasing the speed of data retrieval for the user. This inturn also reduces the load on the server. Moreover, AJAX is supported on all JavaScript supported browsers and is not Operating System dependant. Most of the new generation browsers support JavaScript. It might be a problem with older browsers, as some of them do not have good support for JavaScript.

And if you wish to see AJAX at work. Just login to your favourite eMail application : GMAIL. Yes, Gmail is built on AJAX. Another example is Google Maps.

You will find a good lot of tutorials in the following links:

What is XMLHttpRequest? <developer.apple.com>
Creating your first application using XMLHttpRequest: <webpasties.com>
A few working samples: <fiftyfoureleven.com>
Whats happening with AJAX: <ajax PHP magazine>
Some good tutorials and comparisons here <wikipedia> (check out the articles section)
Is AJAX going to kill web framework? <James Strachan's weblog>

Books on AJAX : <ajaxmatters.com>

And a good compilation of the cons of using AJAX: <alexbosworth blog>
Why the web usability guru says "NO" to Ajax for new designers : <usabilityviews.com>

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Power Marketing ... yourself

2005-11-22T08:10:00.000+08:00

I recently bumped into this article on power marketing <link>. A very good article on how to market yourself. Being a creative designer, you need to highlight yourself to the mass out there. To stand out among the plenty in the market and to outshine the number, you must work out some intelligent tricks.

This article on power marketing gives us some insight on how to market yourself. So, Be the BEST whatever and however you are!

A few more sites to look at:

- The power of design in marketing : <marketingprofs/design>
- Some more tips to market yourself : <kineticIdeas>

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Generating Dynamic Flash forms from XML

2005-11-21T09:12:00.000+08:00

As Flash slowly sprawls out on the web, we look at different ways and means to improve the way rich and powerful applications can be built to work from the web. Flash had proved great critics wrong with it ever engaging ways to power online and offline applications. But to develop such application, the challenge was for the developers to understand Flash and the way it works.

Today we have different solutions to set things right. A developer no longer need to understand Flash to develop such highly rich and interactive applications. Macromedia Flex is one such tool for the developer group to utilise the power of Flash Applications without much difficulties.

Another tool that I think, will definitely help the developer community is the open source project: enFlash. This uses the power of XML to generate Flash Applications. This provides a set of visual elements which can be used to dynamically generate Flash applications from XML.

:> view Demo : http://demos.enflash.org/
:> Installing enFlash on Linux: http://www.uncubic.net
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Dreaming of Flash Comm Server - Free?

2005-11-21T08:52:00.000+08:00

Well, it is not long that you might have one soon. This is yet another OpenSourceFlash project. The project named Red5, is a project dedicated towards streaming content from Free connection oriented server to the Flash player. Wow! sounds great right? Well, it is still time for us to really get a hands on trial to this project. But once, out it would definitely bring some new wave of developement in the Flash community.

View the FAQ here: Red5/FAQ

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What haXe? What is it ?

2005-11-21T08:43:00.000+08:00

As of now the world has been driving the web using languages like JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, JSP, etc. The web has accepted yet another powerful language for the web called ActionScript.

This project is yet another strong lead toward integrating all these languages (including ActionScript) under one platform called : haXe.

For more, you may want to check out: http://haxe.org/

Some good references for developers:

- Screenweaver HX

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Web Distributed Data Exchange ( WDDX)

2004-12-26T16:51:00.000+08:00

WDDX is an XML-based technology that enables the exchange of complex data between Web programming languages, creating what some refer to as 'Web syndicate networks'. WDDX consists of a language-independent representation of data based on an XML 1.0 DTD, and a set of modules for a wide variety of languages that use WDDX. WDDX can be used with HTTP, SMTP, POP, FTP and other Internet protocols that support transferring textual data.

For more read : openwddx >> FAQ

Coders search for Codes @ Koders !

2004-12-15T21:26:00.000+08:00

Have you been hunting for codes? While searching, just came thru this website, which helps you search for codes in PHP, Java, JavaScript, ASP, etc. No guarantees whether you would be going bang on to the result, but a lot of good resources definitely assured!

You may find the search facility @ koders.com

Ooops sorry, ActionScript folks, they are yet to add this option to their search. You might want to try using the keyword ActionScript and Flash ... Hope you do "C" some results :)

Amazing balls of Corporate Business

2004-12-06T09:23:00.000+08:00

If you were looking into some neat articles for Business ethics and corporate values, you might want to have a peek into this website : businessballs.com. Just scroll thru the left panel and browse thru the article of your interest. The articles are very well written and need a big appreciation for keeping it free for all of us to read!

So, why wait? Polish your business ethics and corporate values right now!!

ImageEditors for Pocket PC

2004-11-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

Being an artist is a boon! And having a PDA to scribble on is a WOW! There is nothing like scribbling your ideas when you are idling your time in a bus or train. If you are lucky enough to own a PDA, you must try your hands on these Image Editors.

1) Pocket Artist : Conduits.com
2) MultiPad : PocketGear >> MultiPad
3) Pencil Box : PocketGear >> PencilBox

So, Happy Scribling!!

Unit Testing Framework for Rich Internet Applications

2004-10-02T07:59:00.000+08:00

Now your ActionScript classes could be tested seperately out of your creative environment to check for vulnerabilities and plan for improvements. Released by Iteration::two, the component boasts of unit-testing capabilities to deliver quality applications to production.

The site also offers to download the component and has a few good case studies to support the same.

Check it out @ : as2unit.org

Read release article @ iteration::two

Flash Movie Clip Tweening using ActionScripts

2004-09-29T11:24:00.000+08:00

A great deal has been done to get some wonderful motion effects using Flash. But some of the great wonders can only be brought in using a powerful mathematics algo. And this could be implemented using Macromedia Flash ActionScripts.

This website has a great bit of some amazing tweeing effects :

Some great tweens by : Ladislav Zigo

Intro to Flash and ColdFusion

2004-09-27T11:32:00.000+08:00

If you are looking at laying your hands on ColdFusion and Flash : you must get a hang of this one first. Have a look at this Breeze presentation :

Macromedia Flash and ColdFusion

Ehh ... Feel like trying it.... !! Just Get started!! It's simple

Wish to know the Tru...th ??

2004-09-24T09:20:00.000+08:00

The email spams and stories carry a lot of things related to our personal life and experience. But, it could be just another story writing experience by the spammer and may not just be true. A friend of mine passed this site which "may be" speaking the truth ..... finallieee :)

Check it out : http://www.truthorfiction.com/

Flash Virtual Machine

2004-09-23T11:10:00.000+08:00

The name in itself sounds so resounding and interesting! I too agree with Steven @ iterationtwo that, the term Flash Player sounds more in terms of animation and graphics display. For the Rich Internet World, to have something like a Flash Virtual Machine would be a boon for Flash Coders.

Check out this interesting article @ RichInternetApps.com

Writing MM Flash MX2004 components

2004-08-04T10:58:00.000+08:00

Found a neat article to write components in Flash:

Read Thru @ Person13.com

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 v7.2 (aka Ellipsis) coming soon

2004-08-04T10:23:00.000+08:00

Have you been wondering... whatzz cooking in Flash MX 2004 an updater release on the pipeline which would be coming soon...

I should say ... a whole lot of features... and it also says : Fast performance!

Check it out : There is this wonderful article written by : Paul Newman on Community MX

It says...

What you can expect:

Your movies will compile faster, especially if you use Screens or movies that contain a lot of ActionScript
Flash no longer crashes or unexpectedly closes ... hmm thats Good !!
You can now run Flash and other Studio MX applications at the same time

Search the World!

2004-08-03T17:43:00.000+08:00

Looking for A World Map : MapQuest (It also has an Yellow Page section. Check it out!);

CSS : Styling with StyleSheets

2004-08-02T13:54:00.000+08:00

We no more spend our time, selecting text or form elements to apply certain color or text format or color effects in web pages. All that we need to do is incorporate styles in the way of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS ) or ebedded styles to webpages. This would just require us to fill the page with the content and images ... and the formatting takes place automatically.

A few good resources for Cascading Style Sheets can be found at : webdeveloper virtual library

The beauty of CSS today is that it can now even control the layout of the web pages. No more structuring with tables. Just apply the respective style sheet and Bam!! the layout is given a totally different look. An example of such a CSS use can be found at ZenGardens. Try right click on the page and view the source. You would be amazed not to find tables to design the layout of the page. You may also try out the different layout options offered in the site.

A few good resources:

1) W3C schools
2) Web Design Group
3) CSS Max Designs
4) CSS validator
5) CSS Bugs and Workarounds
6) HTML Writers Guide

CSS Layout resources:

1) Zen Garden
2) Glish.com
3) Meyer Web
4) CSS Vault
5) WestCIV

CSS 2 Resources:

1) W3C School

Exploring JavaScripts

2004-08-02T11:07:00.000+08:00

Here are a few tips and tricks of JavaScripts

1) Retrieving the domain name:

We can retrieve the domain name of the current web page using JavaScript. Hmm... well, how? By using the domain property of the document object in JavaScripts. The document.domain property contains a string which contains the domain, including the "www" prefix if it's present in the URL, and the domain extension, such as "com", if a domain extension is present in the URL. The extension won't be present in the URL if the URL specifies a local server. The prefix, domain, and extension are separated by period characters.
The method below, writeDomain(), is used to write the current domain to this page.

For full details and code : source: codehouse.com

The Programming Web Directory

2004-08-02T10:45:00.000+08:00

If you are searching for some cool developer websites, or looking for resources on Scripting, you should not miss this one:

Programming-X . com

Its just a matter of searching thru the alphabetically arranged Technical resources. You are sure to stumble across a lot of useful resources.

Just a word of caution ... try not to keep wandering, its truly addictive.... stick to what you are searching for... :D

Free WebPhoto Album generator

2004-07-31T19:21:00.000+08:00

Found a few useful tools to create and upload photo albums for the web.

A few of them are :

1) Web Album Generator 1.5
2) JAlbum - Web Photo Album Generator **

Install and try it out!! Its pretty easy!! :)

Accelerating PHP Applications

2004-07-21T14:49:00.000+08:00

This presentation does speak on speeding up the performance of your PHP applications. These are truly useful tips that I found while browsing thru. Hmmm... now if you go down to click this one ... I hope you go in with some patience, because, the page keeps refreshing every now and then ... !! And then to navigate, you need to click on the Page number (0 - on top right), which will pop-up the content list for you to navigate thru... :) I hope there is still a better way to do it... ;))

http://talks.php.net/show/acc_php/0

A list of the contents from this section of the site (talks.php.net) :

# Slide Title
0 Welcome!
1 Questions
2 Challenge: Improve eZ publish 3.3 performance
3 Accelerating: APC
4 The Hunt for Speed
5 Tracing the Problems
6 Xgui
7 Finding the Bottleneck
8 Speeding up
9 Reducing Memory Usage
10 Accelerating More
11 Apache Is Slow!
12 Say Squeeze
13 Static Squids
14 Preview Caching
15 No Indexes for Now!
16 For the Future
17 Resources

Anyway, do not miss to view this page, it has a lot of informative presentations: click here

Looking for Free Photo Editors??

2004-07-20T18:23:00.000+08:00

Well, if you ever wondered, if there are any FREE (I mean absolutely Free) photoeditors around? I should make you believe that there are a few which has truly come up and said, "Yes Its Free!!"

One of them is the Gem of the Unix Photo World... Yes you got that right,"GIMP". Ahaa, now if you wonder, if this could be used on the Windows platform, think its a Big Yes!! GIMP is looking at the Windows Operating System.

If you wish to try out, try downloading it from >> here.

Ohh yeah ... do not miss a few more FREE tools available. Check it out @ About.com. A neat article from Sue Chastain.

Splashing through Java Forums

2004-07-20T17:14:00.000+08:00

Open sources are a great new way of sharing developed applications. I am a bit too thrilled using my all time favorite opensource PHP scripting language. The other day I was out there searching for a few open source Forums. Well, without doubts got hit into PHPbb and tell you the truth, it is a truly great job done by the developers. Moreover its ease of use has just got me fall for it.

Well, my life had to get more tougher with our client wanting a Java based open source forum and so the search begins ..... again !! :) But doing these kinda research does build up my graycell level. So, I'm pretty much on the forefront when I'm offered jobs like these... !! Get going with Search Lights and Camping tools ( google ... in my case :) )

Well, I did not know, this was a job far easier than frying eggs on a hot pan!! My boss got hooked on with this one (mvn). Aah, now that I got to know a few good Java based Forum opensources, I have a tough journey ahead to get this running .... !! Woaaa ... Try it out to the core !! :)

Well, anyways... this is one of the most liked Java based Open source forum :

MVN : is a free opensource and is under GNU license. It is said to support JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3. What more it comes with Internationalisation supporting languages like "Portuguese, Korean, Japanese and Greek " as of now.

So, there's no looking back... just get your forum rocking >> Download MVN

Here are a few more interesting Java based opensource Forums: click here

Brushing Colors into Photoshop

2004-07-20T16:52:00.001+08:00

Was bedazzled by a few brushy works in Photoshop and was thrilled to learn this art of patchy artwork. With this quest, I moved on to our ever reliable google to help me get started. Here are a few websites where you could get scratching .... errrmm your Photoshop brushes.

Now to create a cool looking brush stroke in PhotoShop wasn't as easy before I read this one : Grunge Brushes (from vbrush.com). A few of the other interesting sites are listed below:

VBrush
Paint Shop Pro Brushes
Echoica
DigitalGoodies (think, this one's free)
Komodo Skins (Guess you are intelligent enough to search in here)

Next to go .... PhotoShop and Batch Processing...urrgghh.... !!

VerticalPixels set to the orbit

2004-07-12T09:46:00.001+08:00

Finally got my much awaited website up and running. Although a few more updates awaiting completion, its always a nice feeling to have the foundation stone laid. Please check it out and le'mme help you criticize it left and right. ;P For which, I shall be putting up a feedback forum, where you could put in all your "good" criticism in the best possible way!! :)

Please check my website @ http://www.verticalpixels.com

Have a nice day!!

VerticalPixels set to the orbit

2004-07-12T09:46:00.000+08:00

Finally got my much awaited website up and running. Although a few more updates awaiting completion, its always a nice feeling to have the foundation stone laid. Please check it out and le'mme help you critisize it left and right. ;P For which, I shall be putting up a feedback forum, where you could put in all your "good" critisizm in the best possible way!! :)

Please check my website @ http://www.verticalpixels.com

Have a nice day!!

Truly Thankful

2004-07-09T17:50:00.001+08:00

Today when you browse through search engines for technical stuff... you are bound to bump into atleast two blogs if not more. Blogs are the in-thing today. I always was very excited reading through the articles and experiences shared in by folks thru these blogs. Well, its always better late than never and I too have started using it and am already sharing my experiences, which would go along in the years to come.

Thanks Dude!! I truly stand obliged to my friend cum colleague Albert Hardy for introducing me to this. Thanks Albie... :D

Catch him @ : Albert.TanuTama.com

Adobe PhotoShop CS Asia 04 @ Singapore

2004-07-09T17:24:00.001+08:00

A huge crowd flocked in to view the at the Adobe PhotoShop CS Asia, Rafles City Convention Center, Singapore. The morning queue did speak for itself as it saw the zig zag curve crawling to around 200 meters long. The organisers did work out a decent job and got the crowd in without much hassles and waiting.

The show started off with Photoshop evangalist, Peder Engrob stealing the show with some creative masterpiece that he did manage to weave out during the session. The morning session basically featured new additions to Photoshop CS and the afternoon session focussed maily on digital potography and digitally generated image manipulation. Aaron Tavakoli, Creative Professional and Product Specialist, gave a beautiful insight of how to create a world of a difference to your otherwise pale looking photoshots.

The program also saw the Creative Guru Russel Brown flying all across the world .... :D

The program was truly informative, and personally did manage to gain a lot from it. Thanks to Peder and Aaron for the examples.

Generate PDF Files from Flash and PHP

2004-07-09T17:11:00.000+08:00

Guess what? You can now generate PDF files from Flash [ for FREE!! ]. Ohh yeah that square bracket thing is very important ;))

There used to be another way of getting this up, and that was by using "PDFlib" classes, but it comes with a price tag attached to it. As I kept digging deeper to got hold of an opensource, and just crash landed into this page ... and wooh, it does give me FREE PDF publishing.

And now for the million dollar question, Whatz that ??

[source from http://www.fpdf.org/]

FPDF is a PHP class which allows to generate PDF files with pure PHP, that is to say without using the PDFlib library. The advantage is that PDFlib requires a fee for a commercial usage. F from FPDF stands for Free: you may use it for any kind of usage and modify it to suit your needs.

Please visit this site for more information? >> http://www.fpdf.org/

[the link works fine as on 09/July/2004] :)

All new VerticalPixels website

2004-07-06T09:31:00.000+08:00

Its truly hard to get personal things rolling when you are out of home to work from sunrise to late after the sun sets. Somehow managed to pin down a few ideas to get our most awaited website up and flashing.

So, watchout verticalpixels in action!!

PhotoShop-CS Asia 04

2004-06-23T09:33:00.000+08:00

There is this event/sales meet at Singapore on Adobe® Photoshop® CS - in print, photography, on the Web on the 7th of July 2004. It would also be hosting some Photographic tips. Am counting this visit on that! chuckles!!

I shall feedback the same after I come back from the seminar.

Plug-in : eMagazine @ Developer Shed

2004-06-22T15:57:00.000+08:00

I just happened to bump into this eMagazine. Found it to be very informative and thought of sharing the same. Click on the following link and get "Plugged-in".

http://www.developershed.com/past-publications.php