…and then came Silverlight 3 !

Yeah!

SilverLight 3 is here.

Loads and loads of new features. Infact, I am sure this is going to heat up the RIA wars with the Flash Platform.

Silverlight now combines the features of Flash 10, Flex, AIR and Pixel Bender all in one!

Also, Expression Studio already does what Flash Catalyst is supposed to do next year (or by the end of this year, when ever).

Hell I am impressed!!! Looks like with Bing, Azure and a host of new products, Microsoft’s getting it right all over again! And Silverlight 3 appears to be another one of those aces.

Take a look at the complete feature listing here: http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight3/default.aspx

…and I’ll go start working on some samples now.

ciao!

S.

edit: Did I mention Sliverlight 3 also supports desktop applications for both Windows and Mac now? (I haven’t tested this yet, but what the hell! Its exciting to hear those words…!)

first trial pipe

I finally got around to playing with Yahoo! pipes.
It was something I have been very interested in since a long time now.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/shauryashaurya/blog_feed_meta_trial_1 is the first attempt at these.

It provides the aggregate of the two feeds that the user enters in the input boxes.

I have a feeling that I am going to enjoy this a lot…

pattern: new improved improvement

…and it so happened that after preaching anti-patterns in my very first post, I myself was stuck in one of them. It was called “If its working don’t change“.

I was stuck with blogger for a long long time, thinking things I shouldn’t have, a final disaster recovery routine pushed me over the edge and here we are. I hope WordPress is nicer. Please don’t push me into buying my own domain. I’d switch to Joomla or sth. if that happens. Rad huh? for now, I am happy though.

Three things helped me out in migrating from blogger to wordpress:

1. The nifty little import feature built into wordpress itself.
2. http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2006/05/move-blogger-to-wordpress
3. http://www.benh.org/techblog/2007/02/migrating-new-blogger-to-wordpress-2/

…and here we are. An anti-pattern eliminated, a new non-IdiotProof solution in place. I sincerely hope, next time I am faster, more proactive at resolving things. I hope the present is not a sumo marriage, that stands on the shoulders of midgets.

“”

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Flash Player 10 – bad install for Firefox – Solution.

Flash Player 10 had been giving me a lot of grief when it came to working with Firefox.
I finally figured out a solution, am still unclear what the trouble was!
Wonder is my solution is correct – it seems to work for now tho.

Issue:
I was using Flash CS3 with player 9 installed. The ActiveX and .dll files worked well on IE and Firefox. Then I upgraded to Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10. Things worked well for IE, but did not work well for Firefox 3. I used the flash player uninstaller and still – nogo…

Solution:
It seems the following files:

1. NPSWF32.dll
2. NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe

were present in two locations:

1. C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash
2. C:\WINDOWS\system32

and although the installer did update folder #1, it did not bother with the files in folder #2. Thus in my case folder #1 had flash player 10 files (which worked for IE) but folder #2 still had flash player 9 files (which did not work for firefox)…

So I manually copied the files from C:\WINDOWS\system32\Macromed\Flash to C:\WINDOWS\system32 (replacing those old flash player 9 files)

I restarted Firefox and things seem to be working fine now!

Still I wonder if I’ll have to do this each time there is a new flash player release…

#tweetcoding – a notable mention YAY!!!!

post #twex I got really interesting in another experiment…

#tweetcoding was a kick ass code contest by Grant Skinner (@gskinner)

gskinner.awsum(thx);

prtcipnts hd 2 code sth. cool in ls thn 140 chrs!

140′s too less you say? go check out the awesome stuff people did for 140!

@machine501 setup an online compiler to showcase all the #tweetcoding going on.

machine501.awsum(thx);

.
.
.
and now the results are out!!!

The Winners :
diagonal snake by @tomee6
Tunnel of Stripes by @piXelero (a personal favorite!)

winners.sendMsg(“Congratulations!!!”);

The Runners-ups :
the drummer by @vectorcinco
Ghost Marquee by @dickwolf

runnerups.sendMsg(“Congratulations!!!”);

and there were some entries that got a Notable mention …and My entry was amongst them:
The time-sketch by @shauryashaurya
happy happy – Wooohooo!!!!

judges.tweetcoding.sendMsg(“this is really encouraging!!!”);
judges.tweetcoding.awsum(thx);

take a look at the #tweetcoding winners page.

1. Check out all of the #tweetcoding (compiled) entries online
2. the #tweetcoding rules
3. link to @gskinner’s blog post on #tweetcoding
4. @gskinner says here that the next round should be in around next month: am eargely waiting!!!

S.

P.S. #twex analysis is still pending (my apologies!!! – sum dum projkts @ wrk I need to fin firs.) but results should be out next month! stay tuned

for those interested, the entry asked for 140 chars of code that, if embedded in some already given “me code” (from @gskinner) should do something “cool”. Here is the source code of my entry (turn strict mode off in Publish setting>action script 3 setting):

// @gskinner’s me code 1
g=graphics;
mt=g.moveTo;
lt=g.lineTo;
ls=g.lineStyle;
m=Math;
r=m.random;
s=m.sin;
i=0;
o={};
function f(e) {
// 140 chars of my code
if (i
j=o.x;
k=o.y;
z=j=k=200;
mt(j,k);
g.beginFill(0,.5);
}
i+=.05;
p=m.PI/2-i;
c=m.pow;
j+=i*c(s(2*p),3);
k+=i*c(s(3*p),3);
ls(k*.01,10,1);
lt(j,k);
}
// @gskinner’s me code 2
addEventListener(“enterFrame”,f);

cheers!

S.

:):)

A total tweet of an experiment…

http://blog.learningmate.com/wordpress/?p=21

I started a total tweet of an experiment at work.

lotsa people show lotsa interest. Key is keeping it alive. I hope it all works out.

big thanks to Atul for making it possible.

if(makes_a_difference(“it”) == true)
{ I->love(“it”);}
else
{throw not_interested_exception(null);}

CS4 ships…finally!

It turns out that the last time I saw CS4 it was not shipping. Only buzz-buzz-ing that it is about to ship. So finally on October 15th Adobe put up prices and all… so looks like CS4 is finally shipping…

• Adobe CS4 Launch Broadcast: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1556v1715
• Creative Suite 4 : Suite Selector : http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/suiteselector/

…CS4!!!

On September 23, Adobe released the long-awaited Creative Suite 4, this also included Flash CS4 and Photoshop CS4.

Check out the wicked new features in Flash CS4 here. Although it looks like Flash CS4 uses Flash Player 9 update 3(press release). Meaning there should be a Flash CS4 update for Flash Player 10 sometime soon.
Niiiice

And they have just added more bang to 3D in Photoshop CS4!!! The top new features here. Hey if you were wondering about the sexy resize… it’s there in all it’s glory… YAY!!!

to re-iterate…

NNIIIIIIICEEE!!!

Interaction Design Patterns

I have been trying to start a Interaction Design/HCI blog for some time now, but time has not really been permitting…

So till the time I get time’s permission, I’ll post my interaction interests here…

This one is about Interaction Design Patterns.
Now, even though the world is divided on the pros and cons of Design Patterns, I like them a lot cause they help me communicate complex ideas simply, and that traslates to production lubrication in more ways than one.

Design patterns when we consider them in the context of IxD/HCI become “Interaction Design Patterns”
User Interface components, layouts, tasks, goals all can be classified into these, and at the end of it all, defining your strategy in terms of these patterns makes for a far more comprehensive approach, than actually drilling down to UI specifics from the start.

Here are a few resources.

• Interaction Design Patterns on Wikipedia.
• Pattern Catalogue on Welie.
• On Interaction-Design.org
• Tom Erickson’s Interaction Design Patterns Page.
• Interaction Design Pattern Library for Games.
• Visualization Design Patterns.
• Yahoo! Design Pattern Library on the Yahoo Developer Network.

More pattern goodness coming up!…

Cheers