Technology Flavor Blog

Creative Ways for Sign-Up, Sign-In

2009-10-29T19:32:00.006+05:30

Came across a creative implementation of Sign-Up & Sign-In functionality using Fill-in-the-Blanks!!

Like it....new interaction pattern to add to the library!!!!

Next week is Adobe MAX - be part of the excitement

2009-10-02T21:03:00.003+05:30

Starting Oct 4 2009 thousands of developers, designers and decision makers are gathering in Los Angeles for Adobe MAX.

If you are not attending this event, you can still be part of the excitement.
Register for Adobe MAX online for live streaming keynotes and presentation recordings.

http://max.adobe.com/online/

Additionally you can follow the many tweets that will be marked with #AdobeMAXGS.

Creativity With Your Domain Name

2009-07-27T10:52:00.005+05:30

Domain names are the crux of a website's existence. A bad name can create a negative impact on branding and the ability to strengthen the domain value. A good domain name is essentially priceless (tacky but true) in name, branding, ease of understanding, and catchiness.

By the end of the first quarter of 2009 we had roughly 74 million ccTLD registrations which is an 18% increase compared to the same quarter in 2008. At the moment there are over 240 ccTLD extensions on the global market.

However, out of these 240 ccTLDs, the ten biggest (presented above) represent 64% of the total number of registrations. The .us domain grew fastest with a 12% increase quarter over quarter. Special promotions drove sales, especially in China. The Chinese ccTLD experienced its slowest growth in twelve quarters, with a four percent growth (can be attributed to both sales and recession). Overall, the 25 largest ccTLD’s experienced a substantial amount of growth from Q4 2008 to Q1 2009.

For more on DNS & TLD's, click here.

Tweleted: Deleted Twitter Posts?

2009-07-20T23:28:00.004+05:30

Tweleted? Yes as the name suggests, Tweleted promises to recover any Twitter posts you may have accidentally deleted.

Because Tweleted uses publicly available records, the website can recover not only your deleted tweets but also everyone else's. And since Twitter users aren't exactly known for filtering their thoughts, the few things they think twice about should be interesting.

Tweleted raises some larger privacy concerns. When a user deletes a post on Twitter, it disappears from their user profile but not from Twitter's search engine results. Tweleted uses this loophole to dig up its deleted posts. Some Twitter users are crying foul, arguing that when they delete something, it should be gone for good. The company says they're working on it to make this happen, although setting your Twitter profile to private fixes the issues.

For now, it's worth remembering the old adage: If you don't want someone to read it, it's better not to write it — or tweet it — in the first place.

Check out the website version in Good or Evil mode on www.tweleted.com

New Enhancements in Gmail

2009-07-03T08:56:00.003+05:30

Google launches new enhancements in Gmail by introducing drag 'n' drop functionality for your messages and labels. This feature lets you drag your messages in right window pane to left pane with labels that you have already defined.

Pretty good functionality when it comes to organizing your labels and avoid the extra steps of selecting your mail and then selecting the respective label action from top bar and move the mails accordingly in the label header.

So log on to your Gmail a/c's and see the feature in action.

Google News Timeline

2009-04-21T11:00:00.004+05:30

Google today announced 'Google News Timeline' - a new feature on Google Labs that organizes many different types of search results on a zoomable, graphical timeline.

Google News Timeline presents search results from a wide variety of sources. You can search and browse results from Google News, including headlines, quotes, photos from their Hosted News partners, and YouTube partner videos. You can also search for thousands of archival newspapers and magazines from Google News Archive Search and Google Book Search.

To browse through time, you can specify a date in your search, drag the timeline of results, or set the time scale to days, weeks, months, years, or even decades.

Adobe Max 2008 Announcements

2008-11-20T22:26:00.005+05:30

With the grand Adobe MAX 2008 San Francisco coming to an end for this year, I would like to draw your attention to some of the announcements made during the conference relating to Flash Lite and User Groups in general.

1. Announcement of Adobe Groups
This is a great tool made available by Adobe for maintaining User Groups activities.
This will also allow you to join more User Groups in your city/country relating to various Adobe technologies. Link: http://groups.adobe.com/groups/80baac7d50

2. Adobe 3.1 Distributable Player
This is a great tool because it means, an end user will no longer need to check for the presence of Flash Lite on their handsets. The content itself (when installed as a .SIS or .CAB file) will check for the player version, download and install it using network connectivity. You can read the details here -http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/index.html?navID=sell

3. Flash Player 10 for Symbian Phones, Android and Windows Mobile
The Flash Player 10 (not the Flash Lite subset) was demoed at MAX on the above mentioned 3 platforms. Their date for launch is still not announced, but the very fact that single player runs across screens, will mean a lot to developers.

4. Adobe Packager
They announced Adobe Packager as well. It will help to package swf and non-swf content into a sis / cab file for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones. More details are available on http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/?navID=sell#packager

Publish Post

Finally Gmail comes with Themes!!!

2008-11-20T11:39:00.004+05:30

Have you been installing unofficial themes to spice up your Gmail inbox?

Theses have never been an integral functionality of Gmail and folks always wanted this to be there as a part of their daily tool, they use to send mails and do more stuff.

You would see around 30 new themes that includes shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company.

Hey most important of all is the activation of these themes from the 'Settings' feature on your top right gmail window and access 'Themes' tab to choose from your favourite ones!!!

Enjoy Theming!!! :)

Agile Software Development: A Risk to Overall User Experience?

2008-11-20T11:37:00.000+05:30

Hope you all checked out Nielsen's latest article on 'Agile Software Development' and it's impact on overall user experience.

A similar statement has been made by Larry Constantine in his report "The Usability Challenge" published recently in which he said "the absence of any comprehensive overview of the entire architecture" is a shortcoming of nearly all techniques that are based on iterative expansion and refinement in small increments.

Is this really a emerging pattern and such approach risks undermining the concept of an integrated total user experience that can end up resembling a patchwork?

Any thoughts around the same or discussion threads for Nielsen's article....

Today is World Usability Day!

2008-11-14T03:49:00.001+05:30

Today the usability community is sponsoring over 225 events in over 40 countries to raise awareness about usability, and to train professionals in the tools and issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

It's great to see the activities in which the CUA Central community is participating. Refer the link below to have a sneak preview on the CUA Community Events.

http://cua.humanfactors.com/profiles/blogs/what-are-you-doing-for-world

Prototyping in XHTML

2008-11-05T07:35:00.003+05:30

So what does it mean to prototype with XHTML?

Essentially, it’s the process of using the XHTML itself, and related technologies, to evolve and define your design solution.

And what does an XHTML prototype look like?

While, as we’ll see, that depends on where you are in your prototyping process, an XHTML prototype generally looks like any other web page built with XHTML, with some links or features perhaps being non-functional.

In other words, anything you can build with XHTML, from consumer websites to enterprise applications, you can also prototype with XHTML. As we’ll see, there are numerous advantages to this approach compared to designing with wireframes or other prototyping tools.

Here's a nice article by Anders on same and talks about the same in detail.

Article Link: Prtotyping in XHTML

Source: Boxesandarrows.com

Savings & (mis)Trust: A Credit Crisis Explanation

2008-10-10T12:47:00.003+05:30

Came across a nice video that explains the subprime mortgage crisis currently in US.

Some extracts from the orignal post:
The United States economy is suffering one of the worst financial crises in history, due to seriously flawed subprime mortgage lending practices over the past eight years. The repercussions have already been severe and continue to unravel. American people are fearful and unsure of what the future holds. How did we get to this point? Clearly understand the roles that borrowers, mortgage lenders, banks, financial institutions and asset backed securities played in creating this financial meltdown of historic proportion.

Beware of over-consistency: Amazon.com

2008-10-05T10:15:00.001+05:30

An example of the Your / My conflict (if there a conflict) can be
seen on Amazon. If you select the "Your Account" link it takes you to a section sub-headed "Where's My Stuff". However, below it there are links such as "Change your name", "Forgot your Password?" etc.

Do people think it that:

(1) If "Your" is used then it should be consistent across all
links?

(2) or it is possible to have "Your" as the parent link and "My" as child links

Is there a conflict within Amazon or does it make perfect sense?

So the Moral of the story is: beware of over-consistency.
"Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - Emerson

Quick Turnaround Usability Testing

2008-09-30T16:18:00.002+05:30

A new methodology for Quick Turnaround Usability Testing (QTUT) is being designed by usability practitioners that minimizes the time needed to complete usability testing.

Step wise activity that completes the process quickly is mentioned below:

Step 1: Sales & Kickoff
Step 2: Recruitment
Step 3: Preparation
Step 4: Testing
Step 5: Analysis & Reporting

A nice read that elaborates this approach for performing usability testing with minimal time for projects that demand quick release.

Refer to this article link for more insight: Quick Turnaround Usability Testing

Five Second Usability Test

2008-09-30T16:11:00.002+05:30

The five second test is a simple usability test that helps you measure the effectiveness of your user interfaces.

Follow the url to test: five second test - A simple online usability test

Google Chrome: ’stats for nerds’ feature

2008-09-08T00:15:00.001+05:30

Did anyone checkout the “stats for nerds” feature in Google Chrome browser task manager ?

This features enables a user to view the complete status on the processes running in the Chrome browser along with the Process ID (PID) and the virtual memory consumption details for the respective processes. The task manager allows the user to end the processes running in Google Browser in-order to free some memory space in a way similar to Windows Task Manager.

Nice feature though to manage processes and free up some CPU load!!!

Bad Mobile Usability

2008-09-04T12:25:00.002+05:30

HTC just announced their new phone Diamond using the new Touch3D UI. The UI is actually pretty nice as a skin on top of Windows Mobile 6.0.

There’s one big usability problem though.Their email preview is at an angle for stylistic reason - which makes it pretty hard to read the preview of the message.

Similar Launches: Google & Microsoft Browser

2008-09-02T23:21:00.002+05:30

How come both announcements on the same day? What’s the latest?
As we already know by now, that Google is launching its open-source browser Chrome ( similar to lines with mozilla firefox) , Microsoft unveiled its Internet Explorer beta 8 version.

Why is it so exciting?
It is because either Microsoft is scared by the over growing Google dominance in web space or is it something else.

How the philosophy differs for both giants?

Microsoft believes in pay for service ideology whereas Google believes in distribute for free ideology. There are almost no products from Microsoft which can be said to free be it anything and on the other hand there are almost no services from Google which are said to be paid unless you require a big email account on gmail which would be really impossible to given for free.

Since this is the first step by Google to move in the products domain, though having other extensions to the services google offer on web. Google has been in the services domain since long, and almost all their apps were mostly service based. Microsoft had an upper hand in products domain from os to accounts, they had all the products. Yet, the products will decide ewho wins the war again?

Which one is more usable from usability and user experience point of view?

Well it’s too early to comment on this question right now but stay tuned for the 2nd part of this article in series to know about each of the product’s usability.

Get Ready for Google Chrome: Open Source Browser

2008-09-02T17:30:00.001+05:30

Google just officially confirmed that it will release a new open-source web browser, called Google Chrome.
Google Chrome is an open source browser based on Webkit and powered by Google Gears. It premiers originally on Windows only, with Mac and Linux versions to come later.
Features include:

Tabbed browsing where each tab gets its own process, leading to faster and more stable browsing. If one tab crashes, the whole browser doesn’t go down with it
A distinct user interface that places tabs on top of the browser window instead of right below the address bar
An “incognito” mode that lets you browse the web in complete privacy because it doesn’t record any of your activity
A new JavaScript engine built from the ground up for speed
Malware and phishing lists that automatically update themselves and warn you of bad websites
A default homepage that displays your most commonly used sites and other personalized information

Yahoo Zimbra Beta 3 takes Y! Mail, Gmail offline

2008-07-31T17:40:00.000+05:30

Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop is an AJAX web app for email, contacts, calendar, and documents that works offline. Use it with any POP/IMAP account on Windows, Mac, or Linux computers.The latest release adds IMAP access to Yahoo! Mail. Zimbra Desktop works with both the Open Source and Network Editions of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite and lets you synchronize email, contacts, and calendar to the Zimbra Server (ZCS 4.5+ servers).
Check out the free version, it’s here! For more info on the product, visit Zimbra website.

Google’s Knol: An alternative to Wikipedia

2008-07-28T16:07:00.004+05:30

Google has finally launched their Knol reference tool to the public as a direct challenge to the popular Wikipedia. Intended to be a sort of internet encyclopedia, Knol will be filled with articles written by experts in every possible type of field.
Sounds like Wikipedia, doesn’t it?

The name of the service is a play on an individual unit of knowledge, and entries on the public website, knol.google.com, are called “knols”. Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages. But unlike blogs, Knol encourages writers to reduce what they know about a topic to a single page that is not chronologically updated. Also, Knol does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a knol unless they have the author’s permission. Readers will be able to notify Google if they find any content objectionable.
For more insight into the newly launched tool, visit knol.google.com or read a detailed coverage on Wired.

iPhone 3G booking started in India

2008-06-28T12:02:00.001+05:30

Become the proud owner of Apple iPhone3G on Airtel and Vodaphone.

iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of Phone, iPod and Internet with built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and many third party applications.
Click the links below to register from your respective service providers websites.

http://www.airtel.in/iphone3g

http://vodafone.in/existingusers/iphone/pages/preregister-iPhone.aspx

Famous "faux columns" using CSS

2004-12-11T10:50:00.000+05:30

Designers converting from table-based to CSS-based design are often frustrated by the seeming inability to create equal height columns in CSS, an easy task with tables. Once they learn about the famous "faux columns" technique that simulates equal height columns using a tiling background image on a container, many remain frustrated that the technique only works for fixed width designs. Not so! This article will show you how to create liquid equal height columns using cleverly constructed background images and the background-position property.

Click here for more...

Captivating with Captivate - Part 3

2004-11-22T10:46:00.000+05:30

In Part 3, the final installment, we will cover adding some "jazz" to your Captivate movie. I will show you how to add audio to a movie, change the pointers used by the mouse and how to change mouse movement. I will also show you how to add a playback controller to a Captivate movie and create your own custom controller. Captivate can also be used to create slide shows and I'll show you how to do that as well as explain the importance of a movie contaning no content.

More...

Captivating with Captivate - Part 2

2004-11-13T07:38:00.000+05:30

Part 2 of this article will focus on using Captivate templates, how to change the movie properties and resize your Captivate movie.

More...

Captivating with Captivate - Part 1

2004-11-11T09:06:00.000+05:30

Creating Captivate movies is much more than simply doing a screen capture and "adding stuff here and there". Whether it is demonstrating a software technique, a product demonstration, executing a quiz, or developing a tutorial, the key to success is that old business adage: Plan your work. Work your plan. ”

This 3-part series is an excerpt from Tom Green's Captivate Visual QuickStart Guide. Published by peachPit Press it will be available in mid November.

More...

Macromedia Captivates Users

2004-11-11T02:47:00.000+05:30

Macromedia has brought easy, multimedia content creation to anyone interested in creating interactive or simulated environments. Captivate enables anyone to record onscreen activity and include this in interactive demonstrations. Applications include e-learning, customer service, and training.

Click here for full story...

Flex, Free - Bloggers Especially Welcome

2004-10-13T13:37:00.000+05:30

Macromedia is offering free, non-commercially licensed versions of Flex. The company wants to offer individuals the ability to create enterprise-class Rich Internet Applications. Interested applicants must first submit an application, which will be made available within the next few weeks.

Click here to read more...

Google Launches SMS Search Service

2004-10-09T06:44:00.000+05:30

Google's been busy introducing a lot of new things this week. The latest, a SMS search service. SMS a message to 46645 (googl) and find local business listings, product prices, dictionary definitions, and more. Go Google!

100 GB Email Account

2004-10-02T04:45:00.000+05:30

An article on Toms Hardware describes a Californian company giving out 100 GB email accounts to its customers. They even extended a challenge to get the first user to completely fill up the account, the winner getting a 1 terabyte account !

Macromedia Flash Player 7 For Solaris Now Available

2004-09-18T07:45:00.000+05:30

New version improves security and performance.

Macromedia today announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Solaris. This new version of Macromedia Flash Player offers improved performance and security, and new capabilities for powering rich Internet applications. For more information on Macromedia Flash Player 7, or to download it, visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/flashsolaris.

Instant Messaging Goes Graphical

2004-09-18T07:30:00.001+05:30

For most of the millions of people around the world who regularly use instant messaging, the communications tool has largely been a text-only experience in which typed emoticons offer only minimal clues to someone's state of mind. The recent launch of two services -- a brand new, fully three-dimensional chat-room product known as IMVU, and AOL Instant Messenger's new 3-D SuperBuddy icons -- is putting the spotlight on a major shift by the leading IM providers toward making graphical avatars a fundamental personalization feature.

Mozilla's Goodger on Firefox's Future

2004-09-18T07:30:00.000+05:30

The New Zealand Herald has an interview with Ben Goodger, lead engineer for Firefox at the Mozilla foundation. In it he describes how he got started, his reasons for Firefox's existence and what the future may hold for the little browser that could.

Major graphics flaw threatens Windows PCs

2004-09-15T21:24:00.000+05:30

Microsoft published on Tuesday a patch for a major security flaw in its software's handling of the JPEG graphics format and urged customers to use a new tool to locate the many applications that are vulnerable.

The critical flaw has to do with how Microsoft's operating systems and other software process the widely used JPEG image format and could let attackers create an image file that would run a malicious program on a victim's computer as soon as the file is viewed. Because the software giant's Internet Explorer browser is vulnerable, Windows users could fall prey to an attack just by visiting a Web site that has affected images.

The severity of the flaw had some security experts worried that a virus that exploits the issue may be on the way. Read more...

Batch-o-Moz: Firefox, Thunderbird, Suite Released

2004-09-15T20:59:00.000+05:30

Today Mozilla.org has unleashed a triple threat; Firefox 1.0PR, Thunderbird 0.8, and Mozilla Suite 1.7.3. Wow. Lots of news in all three fronts. so, for your release notes, sys-requirements, what's new, and download links, here you go. Firefox, Thunderbird, and Mozilla Suite.

Enjoy Browsing!!!

Yahoo! Buys Musicmatch

2004-09-15T20:57:00.000+05:30

According to PC World, Yahoo! has just finalized a deal to buy Musicmatch (both its On Demand and download services) for $160 million. More details at IBD. This is a major narrowing of the online music market.

Semantic (X)HTML Markup: Headings and Paragraphs

2004-09-13T22:36:00.000+05:30

Using headings on your (X)HTML pages is a great way to easily improve their accessibility and search engine rankings. However, the way headings appear in your browser often leaves much to be desired: large gaps above and below each heading, and huge font sizes. To avoid these problems, it may seem easier just to leave the heading tags out, instead using font and bold tags to simulate the look of headings. Many web developers do just this, thereby losing out on the great benefits of semantic markup. Luckily, its easy to change the way your headings display using CSS, so you can use semantic markup and still achieve the look you want.

Longhorn Will Have Ability to Ban External Storage Devices

2004-09-10T22:03:00.000+05:30

CNET is reporting that Microsoft will allow IT managers to block devices such as USB memory keys and - shockingly! - iPods. The article refers to 'the threat posed by digital storage devices'.

Speedera and Macromedia Announce Availability of New Live Version of Flash Video Streaming Service

2004-09-10T21:05:00.000+05:30

Developers can now take advantage of hosted services for Flash video delivered across a globally distributed on-demand network.

Speedera Networks Inc., a leading global provider of on-demand distributed application hosting and content delivery services, and Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced the immediate availability of a live video version of Macromedia Flash Video Streaming Service powered by Speedera, which is delivered using its globally distributed on-demand network and server infrastructure.

Click here to read more...

Macromedia Offers Next-Generation Web Conferencing With Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

2004-09-09T23:26:00.000+05:30

Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced new web conferencing purchase plans that, for as low as 32 cents per minute, bring the power of Macromedia Breeze Live web conferencing to everyone. Through affordable hosted monthly and Pay-Per-Use accounts, small to medium-sized businesses benefit from the convenience and cost savings of online meetings. A wide range of customers, including American Express, Federal Express, McDonald's Canada, SBC, TicketMaster, and the city of West Haven, have already adopted Breeze Live to deliver more effective internal and external communications. For more information on Breeze and the new pricing plans, visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/breeze2.

With Pay-Per-Use Breeze Live pricing of 32 cents per minute per user, Macromedia empowers small businesses to meet online at any time for collaboration or live presentations. In addition, all Breeze Live customers will benefit from the unique ability to maintain persistent meeting rooms within their account, ensuring that recurring sales and client meetings have all of the required assets every time without time-consuming setup and configuration. Due to the ubiquity of Macromedia Flash Player, the instant-on nature of Breeze meetings is also a benefit in that meeting participants do not have to download any additional software to experience the robust conferencing solution.

Wow!!! New Google Toolbar gives Browse By Name

2004-09-09T23:00:00.000+05:30

The newest release of the Google Toolbar (Internet Explorer only) comes with a Browse by Name feature. It lets you enter keywords in the browser address bar, and when Google decides this is a sure bet you will be directly forwarded to the right page. Is this the return of Internet Keywords?"

Samsung Introduces Phone With Hard Drive

2004-09-08T12:30:00.000+05:30

"It is being reported that Samsung has shown what it claims is the world's first mobile phone that incorporates a hard drive. The model, V5400, is integrated with a 1" hard drive with 1.5GB of capacity. Other features of the phone include - 2.2" LCD display, an MP3 player, electronic book reader, and Korean-English dictionary. Samsung has also included a built-in microphone to enhance the audio in the phone's camcorder feature. The included dual-speakers allow the user to listen to music with a 3D appeal."

Microsoft to Launch Online Music Store

2004-09-01T11:52:00.000+05:30

Microsoft is expected to enter the online song store market this week, which should put the software giant head-to-head with Apple Computer in the music business at last. The launch of Microsoft's iTunes rival will be timed along with the beta release of Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 10, expected on Thursday, sources say. The store will also be in beta mode, lacking some of the features that will be added later, sources said."

Apple Introduces New G5 iMac

2004-09-01T00:44:00.000+05:30

G5 iMac

"Well, here it is. Looks like the rumors of computer+monitor combined into a sleek little case were true." It's mostly what you'd expect both design-wise and specwise. And I want it.

Fresh Posts Takes time

2004-08-27T07:24:00.000+05:30

Hope you agree with the blog title? So for the first couple of posts I’ll be reusing some of my posts from different sources, so that I have some blogs up and running.

Fresh and Ready: My first blog

2004-08-27T06:46:00.000+05:30

“One more blog?” I asked myself. Aren’t there enough out there already? True, but the need for techy blog was there and was missing too, and here I am typing my first post on my very own blog. Crazy, I never thought I would join the ‘blogathon’, but here I am. Wonder how long the fascination will last!