Adobe Futures?

Some more cool features coming from Adobe [well maybe coming]:


Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

DirST Beta Release

DirST BETA release!

Project Description
Allows one to replicate a DIRectory STructure without copying files. Written in C#.

Freetards

Another great quote:

"Adobe Systems has spun out an alpha version of its Flash Player 10 technology for 64-bit Linux software users today, to satisfy the needs of freetards everywhere." - theregister.co.uk

Quick Quote

I thought this quote was interesting, "You're not even wrong".

First Snow Fall of the Season

First snowfall of the season.

Adobe: Web Premium CS4 Feature Tour

Here's some information on the new Adobe CS4 Web Premium Edition:

Adobe: Photoshop CS4 Announced

Adobe has announced [not shipping] the next version of PhotoShop CS4.

Spore - The Game

Well it's certainly interesting to watch the huge growth of creatures being created by people using the new Spore game. Incredible really! Currently at: 9,212,376+ [Update: As of 09/25/08 @11:16PM EST -> 27,169,403 !!!]

Contract

Started another contract

Infragistics: Net.Advantage 2008 Vol 2 - ASP.NET - Unable to locate license assembly

Problem:
I was trying to install, "Infragistics NetAdvantage ASP.NET" [2008 Vol.2] on Vista. Though the program seems to install properly there were two problems:

1) The components would NOT show up in Visual Studio 2005/2008.
2) After adding the components manually, dragging any of them to Visual Studio's design surface resulted in the error:

"Unable to locate license assembly."

Solution:
Turns out it's a Registry permission problem.

The solution is to create a command file [as mentioned in the article above].

I'm providing it here.

Great Illustrator Tutorial site

Here's a great site for Adobe Illustrator tutorials: VectorTuts.com

GUI: Disabling menus

Recently Joel of Joel on Software published this quote:

"A long time ago, it became fashionable, even recommended, to disable menu items when they could not be used. Don't do this. Users see the disabled menu item that they want to click on, and are left entirely without a clue of what they are supposed to do to get the menu item to work. Instead, leave the menu item enabled. If there's some reason you can't complete the action, the menu item can display a message telling the user why."

I could not disagree more. When we disable a menu-item we put a tool tip to indicate to the user why the menu-item is disabled. In fact isn't it irritating when you choose a menu-item and then it says something to the effect of, "Sorry you can't do this because you haven't done x". If Joel had his way we'd all be wasting our time.

Good thing Joel in not in charge of designing any software that has any significant market share. With this sort of advance one can understand why.

P.S. Even more scary he's written a book, "User Interface Design for Programmers". Of course no surprise people don't seem to really like it.

Image Processing

Here's the first time I've setup an open source project and the commands I tried just simply work. Amazing! The project is an Image Processing project called Processing.

German Kids - Right to Vote

In what can only make sense to German people there is a proposal to allow all people [yes including kids] to vote in the national election. "A bipartisan group of 46 lawmakers made the proposal that would grant 14 million young Germans a chance to have their voices be heard in political matters." Clearly this is completely illogical. And even the Germans appear to agree having tried passing the amendment in 2005 - but was, "rejected by parliamentarians on constitutional and practical grounds since parents would likely cast their own choices and not of their children's.". NO! REALLY?!?!?! So let's examine this a bit a family which has 10 children, would have the parents vote 10x. YA!?!???!?!?!? So why is it back on the table?

Nice quote, "But wouldn’t this make abortion vote-tampering?" --- Don Surber

Learning Visual Studio

Learning Visual Studio.NET can be made a little easier when you have, "Cheat Sheets". Over at LearnVisualStudio.Net they posted some good getting started sheets:

ASP.NET Basics Cheat Sheet
C# 2005 Language Basics Cheat Sheet
Visual Basic 2005 Language Basics Cheat Sheet


More available on their site.

Joel on Software: Martian Headsets (IE8 Standards)

Joel has written another interesting article on 'Standards', this one centering on IE8.

Free Book: Star Wars - Legacy of the Force: Betrayal

There's another FREE PDF version of, "STAR WARS: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: BETRAYAL" available from the publisher's site.

TV ?

It's over the past 4+ years that I stopped watching television. That's right no cable TV for me for over 4 years. What can I say of the experience: 1) The Internet is a replacement [whether that's good or not - it's unclear], 2) I now dislike advertising even more then before, 3) Stopping to watch TV doesn't necessarily make you more healthy or happier, 4) Since world events are a topic of discussion among friends, family and at work - find another source for this information.

There was a recent study mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, plenty of people commented on it and I esp. like this one.

Visual Studio: Performance Tools

After trying get Visual Studio 2008's performance tools to work, it kept reporting that the file, "VSPerfDrv90 is not installed" I finally found a solution. It turns out on the DVD there's a seperate installer called, "vs_profiler.exe". Installing this resolves the problem(s).

From the [root] start of the DVD, there's a folder called, "Standalone Profiler" then choose your, "x64" or "x86" directory according to your machine. Inside there you will find the, "vs_profiler.exe".

Meet the Femtocell

Motorola has come up with a new piece of technology that hopes to aid consumers with the connectivity problems with cell phones in the house. I like the premise behind this technology. That one can leverage their existing Internet connection, but hopefully there will be better applications for this. Meet the Femtocell.

Kindle

It's hard to justify the price of an eBook reader but Amazon has recently introduced the Kindle.
Given there was a push of eBook readers a few years ago and they failed for several reasons (price being one of them) it will be interesting to see what happens with this. My first impression - way overpriced.

Microsoft Expression Suite Listings

Did you ever want to know all the 'Expression' related downloads that are available from Microsoft's download site? If yes try this search.

DVD: Equilibrium

Watched the DVD, "Equilibrium". It's kind of similiar to the Matrix but no where near as good. And the ending :-(.

Chris Pirillo - Blog Comments

Just noticed one can query their comments over on Chris Pirillo's Blog.

Halo 3: Release Date

For all those who didn't know today's, "Halo 3" day!

Wacom: Tablets - Special Editions

Wacom has just come out with the "Intuos3 Special Edition" for their Intuos3 line of tablets.

From the site, "Here at Wacom, we're excited to be celebrating our 25th anniversary. It wouldn't be possible without the support of our many customers over the years, and we want to say thank you in a special way. So, for a limited time, we're launching a very exciting product at a very special price".

Price $489 (vs. $449)

MsgPlus! Add-in: Downloader

Spent a little bit of time in the Messenger Plus! Live API and wrapped the background downloader functions in a simple UI. See details here. Messenger Plus! Live is, "an add-on for Windows Live Messenger which adds lots of features and extras that make your instant messenger easier, more useful or just tons more entertaining".

The Future of Image Resizing

One of the truly great things about having a career in life long learning is seeing innovative things like this new image resizing technique. Hopefully we will see this in a future version of Photoshop [CS4?].

DVD: Reality Bites

Though I've seen the movie before I re-watched the DVD, "Reality Bites". Basically a 20's coming of age movie. Lot's of [now] famous people.

3D: Bryce 5.5 - Free

Daz 3D has released a FREE version of Bryce 5.5. For those that have been around a bit this was a cool tool for creating natural landscapes, etc.

Book: Adobe AIR

"Mike Chambers and the Adobe AIR crew have generously released the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide under a creative commons license.

The pocket guide covers:

* Introduction to AIR
* Getting Started with AIR development
* Working with JavaScript and HTML within AIR
* AIR Mini Cookbook
* Command line tools
* Aliases
" --- http://ajaxian.com/...

WallPaper: Forza 2 - Week 03

Here's a wallpaper for the game Forza 2:

Week 03:
http://shrinkster.com/qba