500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

I couldn't stop my self to post this excellent video on my blog. It displays portraits of women in the history of 500 years of western art.

The best part is the way a portrait is morphed into the next one. They are from several periods of art, from Renaissance to the modern art, from oil paints to sketches...from Da Vinci to Picasso.

The portraits also express the feelings of women and the morphing transforms this feeling from one to the other.

Wow! I have't seen anything better then this. Here it is (Please click the Play button).

Keymapping Issue in Firefox and Flash

THE ISSUE

With almost every European language settings when we run a Flash movie with an input box in Firefox, a weird problem occurs. That is, the [@] and [“] symbols produced by the keyboard are swapped on screen. When we type [@] symbol, it shows [“] double quote symbol and vice-versa.

This is in case of UK English. While in French, German, Spanish, Latin, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek and other language settings many characters that are specific to these languages are displayed incorrectly.

This is annoying when what you type is not what you see. One of our clients shouted on us considering this as our fault. He thought there is some blah in our Flash movie. I was surprised to know the issue and very keen to solve it.

THE CAUSE

I presumed this is due to some problem in Firefox as the issue has nothing to do with ActionScript and Flash input box. Later, I found that the Firefox is actually not reading European language mappings correctly. It works absolutely well with US English (...and, a note for all Firefox lovers that there is no such issue in Internet Explorer).

Later, I started reviewing the HTML code and found that when I remove window mode parameter "wmode" from both "object" and "embed" tags, it worked well! (See solution 1 below for detail).

This will solve the issue but with limitations. Firefox developers should "fire-fix" this bug permanently.

Below are a few solutions, use them as per your need and please do tell me if the problem still persists or you find any other solution!

THE SOLUTIONS

Solution 1
Remove wmode from <object> and <embed> tags.

<object>
<param name="..." value="..."/>
<param name="wmode" value="transparent"/>
<embed src=".... wmode="transparent"></embed>
</object>

This has to be done in all the following cases:

1. When simple <object> and <embed> tags are used in HTML or XHTML.
2. When object and embed tags are written in an external JavaScript file.
3. When SWFObject is used.

Or in any other way, doesn't matter, remove the window mode till Firefox resolves this.

Solution 2
If you do not want to remove the "wmode" then keep the value of this parameter as "normal" but never keep it “transparent".

<object>
<param name="..." value="..."/>
<param name="wmode" value="normal"/>
<embed src=".... wmode="normal"></embed>
</object>

Solution 3
Solve this programmatically. Trap the pressed key and replace the character with what is required. For, e.g., If user presses ["] key then trap the key and assign "@" to the input box in ActionScript. and vice-versa. Treat other European characters similarily.

I haven't coded this yet but this will work. If you need the code, mail jitendramrATgmailDOTcom. I may help you if I get time.

Solution 4
If your issue is limited to email address input then don't ask users to type in the [@] symbol. Divide the email input box in to two and connect them with an [@] symbol as shown below.

@

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Adobe team has acknowledged this bug but closed the error after concluding that this is an external bug and is purely related to Firefox. (http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-479)

Firefox has also acknowledged this. Masayuki Nakano of Mozilla, Japan is resolving the bug and the current status of the bug is set to "assigned". (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347185)

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[Keywords: keymapping, key mapping, flash, firefox, transparent issue, @ symbol, at symbol, key input bug, wmode, ]

burrp! is burping...

Burrp! is burping with popularity. Now it’s gaining reputation not only in Mumbai but in other metros as well.

Two new versions have been launched for Bangalore and Kolkata and a few more for Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Goa and Delhi are in pipeline.

They are also expanding the local stuff to books, cinemas, theatres, art galleries etc. And already launched a lifestyle online magzine called blah.

I am sure its soon going to have big fat popularity and business interests.

When an end-user feels that his/her views/choices have been counted, considered important and also published on the site, it usually attracts them to come up with more reviews. And imagine what happens if they get money as well! I was wondering if

• Burrp! can pay money to the users per review per day basis. They can further think how to implement this logic in order to make it market friendly and acceptable.

Other things may be to:

1. Improve web site usability
   
   
2. Provide more details about places other than address and phone numbers, like timings, website, emails etc.
   
   
3. Can also provide Google/Yahoo! sort of maps to locate the places.
   
   
4. For Mumbai users, the bus routes can also be provided in order to make it more informative and friendly.
   
   
5. Improve tag system.
   
   
6. Eventually they can also invite the business owners to come up with discounts, special proposals, upcoming events information, books, or to write reviews, or test thier products before launch etc for burrpers! (Don’t know whether it is a good idea).

I am testing the usability and friendliness of the burrp website, will come back soon with my review. See you then.

What's in name?

I read an interesting article on how today’s big electronics and computer giants got their names.

Here is the simpler version of what I read.

ORACLE
The prophets of RDBMS, Larry Ellison and Bob Miner worked on a consulting project for CIA, USA, where they were asked to use a new SQL language white papered by IBM. The code name of this project was “Oracle”. The project was in due course expired but Larry and Bob took chance to take their start-up work in the market and they use the same word “Oracle” to name their new RDBMS engine.

REDHAT
The company founder Marc Ewing was given a cap with Red and White strips by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems and he was famous as the guy in Red hat. Eventually when he founded his company he named it Redhat.

YAHOO!

The word Yahoo! was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

GOOGLE
The name Google is a spelling error. The founders of the site, Larry page and Sergey Brin, actually wanted to register “Googol” but they communicated this orally and then it was by mistake registered as “Google”.

MICROSOFT
The word Microsoft was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was “shift deleted” later.

HOTMAIL
When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, Jack Smith (another founder) tried all kinds of names ending in “mail” and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters “html” - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casings.

APPLE
Apple was the favorite fruit of the founder Steve Jobs. He was running three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name.

However, in 1978, Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label, Apple Records, filed suit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit finally got settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps.

SUN
The company name is derived from the initials for Stanford University Network.

SAP
The German gaint SAP stands for "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing." The name comes from the founding members, four ex-IBM employees who used to work in the ‘Systems/Applications/Projects’ group at IBM.

CISCO
Cisco is short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co": Computer Information Services was the department at Stanford University where the founders worked.

INTEL
Founders Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym for INTegrated ELectronics.

SONY
Sony owes its name to the Latin word “Sonus” and an American slang “Sonny” that means a bright youngster. It was chosen for its simple pronunciation that was same in any language.

So it is now a 50 years old “bright American youngster”.

MOTOROLA
Founders Paul and Joe Galvin came up with this name when their company started manufacturing car radios. Many early manufacturers of phonographs, radios and other audio gadgets in early 20th century used the suffix “ola”, that means “Hello” in Latin.

As the company was focused on making automotive electronics, the name was meant to express the idea of “sound” and “motion” and hence the word “Motorola” was coined.

XEROX
This is taken from the Greek word “Xer” which means “dry”. As they produced the world’s first plain paper copier, the name Xerox was coined.

HEWLETT PACKARD
This is quite interesting; the founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Unmilited storage! Yahoo!

After Rediff India announced the unlimited mail storage. Yahoo! too offers the same.

They have already begun with this offer and it will be soon available for it's world wide users.

The Yahoo! Mail VP, John Kremer said, "Yahoo! Mail has become an essential part of people's lives over the past decade and people around the world are increasingly sharing more of their lives online. By providing unlimited e-mail storage, we're continuing to build upon the industry's best Web mail service."

This upgrade will be available under both Existing Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Mail Beta versions.

I wonder, how things have changed in the past 6 years. From traditional 2 Megs of mail storage, it went upto 2 Gigas with Web 2 and now its unlimited. Let's see how Web 3 transforms the Internet communication.

Keep saving!

Google SWITCH, a rumor?

Google washed out the rumors of their first mobile phone - SWITCH.

They do not have any plans to SWITCH to hardware “at the moment” (now what they meant with ‘at the moment’? Are they going to do it later sometimes?).

Google says they are happy with providing software services, the past few acquisitions were aimed to enrich and expand their mobile services.

So grab some coffees and continue surfing.