A Source Of Inspiration

Information overload is consuming us. And if you need to sort out a way to deal with a ton of RSS feeds and constant Instant Messages, then maybe the next Trillian is for you.

Codenamed Trillian Astra, and available for alpha testing, the new messaging client from Cerullean Studios has a impressive roll of features:

• Web based chat
• Cross platform (Mac/PC)
• Interoperability (integrates MSN, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Gtalk, MySpace)
• Ubiquitous contact list (download on login)
• Open protocol
• SecureIM encryption
• Widgets integration
• RSS news bar
• Instant skin change (no restart required)
• Memory usage and leaks reduced

Kevin Kurtz has a screencast where he showcases the new technology:

The application is based on the new Flash Player 9 (not Apollo), being one of the finest examples of RIA i’ve seen lately. Altough i haven’t used Trillian for ages (in Linux i use Gaim, and on XP the standalone IMs) i’m curious to see how this little Flash gem will face the competition, specially the web ones like UserPlane.

For the Flashers out there, MediaBox has recorded sessions of day 1 and 2 of Adobe MAX 2006.

Among other subjects, you can watch:

• Flash Player 9 penetration
• Adobe Apollo forecasts
• New software releases from Adobe
• Integration between Adobe and Macromedia products
• Porting Flash Player to PS3
• The Max Awards
• Flash Mobile and Flash Lite opportunities

(Via Biskero)

Last Wednesday i was checking the workshops for the Numero festival, and a friend pointed out the Quartz composer workshop, by Laetitia Morais. While it seemed a nice technology, i presented him to Processing.org and we was astonished with all the creative possibilities of the language, particularly with the works by Philip Worthington.

Processing was created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool, being one of the most honorable efforts bridging the gap between art and technology. The works of Ben Fry and Casey Reas set the ground for creative collaboration such as the pieces by Golan Levin or Zach Lieberman, awarded in ArsElectronica.

While interested in the creative possibilities of the language i never really thought about the business side of it. Based mainly on the work presented in the exhibitions section, here are my inspirations for Processing:

[Read more …]

I almost forgot to announce the beta release of the Flash Player 9 for Linux, since i do most of my posts on Windows. Obviously I’m writing this one from my laptop running Ubuntu.
So, if you’re a Linux fan, get the version 9,0,21,55 as an installer or standalone player.

• Download Installer for Linux (GZ, 2.48 MB)
• Download Standalone Player for Linux (GZ, 2.38 MB)

“Penguin Flash Developers” can finally browse the inspirational websites made for Flash Player 8 plugin +.
The regular Linux user should expect a final distribution in November, with the current version only available in English and placed on the user’s plugins directory.
via PenguinSWF

Based on Jeremy Ruston’s TiddlyWiki, ccTiddly is a web personal notebook.
It’s a server-side adaptation, based on PHP and MySQL, with version 1 released last September.

I’ve tried to use the TiddlyWiki standalone version for notetaking in a USB drive, or the GTDTiddlyWiki version for the incursions in GTD, but these weren’t quite useful since i’m always exchanging notes between work and home. Also, as i’m most of the time online, it’s not that practical to plug the USB and save the HTML file, that could easily reach several MB.

From the several server-side adaptations, only one seemed promising, so i gave ccTiddly a go. The setup was quite smooth, mostly database parameters and admin rights, and after the upload, it was online.The only thing that failed were the importTiddlers plugin, so i had to start with a blank wiki and expected that future releases might fix this problem.

I spent some time customizing stylesheets, creating some default tiddlers, and learning how to adapt my writing/note-taking style to this app. An finally,here it is:

[Screenshot only. Web app on private URL]

It has all the 2.0 webiness, with ajax transitions and easy editing and the essential feature of being able to access your personal wiki anytime you’re connected.

My review: Great ! If you’re a writer, blogger or training consultant it’s an excellent tool for knowledge management and notetaking, with more freedom than a traditional wiki.

Download link: http://cctiddly.sourceforge.net/

[tag]Microsoft[/tag] sent me an email (see transcript at the end of this post) letting me know that Web sites, extensions, and applications shoud be compatible with Internet Explorer 7.
Well, that’s all beautiful, but instead of the climate of FUD, maybe MS should consider implementing real CSS2 support and compliance with W3C standards.

I wonder what clients think about paying support so their sites work with the new IE7 ?

For us, poor mortal web developers, a few headaches are coming:

• New user-agent string, so you should consider updating those browser detection scripts;
• [tag]CSS[/tag] hacks for older IE versions are unpredictable. MS instead “recommends” their proprietary model of conditional comments;
• Garbage code that MS applications (appolo, ASP.net, Word) spit out.
• You still have to support for quite a while those older IE versions. Less fun, more work.
• Lazy ” webmasters” will keep their old bad habits. Valid [tag]XHTML[/tag] is still a mirage.

But not all are bad news. In fact, some improvements are on the way:

• Full PNG support. At last !
• Some famous bugs no longer present (Peekaboo, Guillotine, 3 Pixel Text Jog, etc)
• width:auto, percentages are expected to behave normally.
• pseudo classes (:hover) in any element are now supported.
• support for ABBR tag

[Read more …]

One of the most active Flash IDEs has released version 2.0 Final.
Now with AS3 & MXML completion.
You can also integrate it with Ant or Flash Build, and you’ll be able to do you Flash Projects without touching the Flash IDE or Flex Builder.
FlashDevelop rocks !

read more | digg story

During last November i got several messages from a few of my hotmail buddies, inviting me to the sms.ac community. As a big fan of Orkut, I thought i could join this one too.

Hmm, but first things first, and let’s try google this sms.ac thing.
Some quick browsing and i became aware that this one is not quite black and white. It comes in various shades of grey, namely:

• How dumb can you be ? During the sign-up process, you are asked your Hotmail username and password. And believe it or not, a lots of people actually did it, compromising their security and giving away other people’s personal adresses without their knowledge. Then again, why don’t you give them your bank account number, credit card or your teddy bear. I’m sure this way you’ll get even more free sms messages.
• Get spam 4 free. Of course this scheme/scam as a purpose, and it probably serves its purposes as an harvesting technique to get email and phone numbers for unethical commercial practices, a.k.a spam. So don’t be surprised if you get you email or mobile inbox a bit flooded with unwanted messages.
• It isn’t really free. Despite the fact they don’t ask for any credit card number, that doesn´t mean that you don’t agree to be charged on you phone bill. Refer to their Terms of Service or Service Agreement and be sure you understand these facts. And expect to see thes schemes in other services, so please be careful to read those tiny words or you’ll end up with an extra phone bills at the end of the month.
• Get ready for even more spam. The trick here is the so called “Premium SMS”, belonging to the same family of mobile services as seen in TV contests or magazine promotions. This would all be fine if we had a transparent process, and we all were aware of the risks/opportunities we enroll when aplliying. But most of the time it’s all very misty and vague, so you end up receiving unsolicited mobile messages when and from you least expected.

So what can we do? Not signing-up, unsubscribing or some spam blocking solution are the clearest exits, but i’m afraid we’ll see much more of these scams. Stay tuned for next chapters, as the Premium SMS startups grow.

Related URLs:
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2004/8/16/0210/98756
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff102047.htm
http://www.gats.rwth-aachen.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=113
http://www.explodedlibrary.info/2004/09/mobile_phones_a.html
http://www.spamblogging.com/archives/000290.html