Dreamsmademe Blog

I don't know when this day came to be. But I knew that it would. I've known to Flash internals a bit. No knack for coding but I knew enough since I used to be a big time Macromedia Flash lover. The honeymoon all ended when Adobe brought it over. Their plans for Flash were big, actually too impressive, they want it to be the platform for the web, mobile and beyond. Likewise Sun had their own plans for "write once run everywhere" their beloved J2ME too. For that ask from any mobile developer, they know what the mess they are in.

In the desktop end I watched in horror, Flash Designer becomes Flash Developer. It almost had a free ride until Google Stuff (Ajax) and then Apple came in. Gosh! it was destined to be next Microsoft Windows or even worse. Actually Windows is better because it solved industry's bigger problem once and for all that many people face right now here and here.

I happened to be a Flash designer for some distant past. It was a wonderful time, when web was in its infancy Flash made possible things which we could not even have imagined putting on web. Finer graphics, animation, streaming content after all that Real Player and MW windows media hassle. Then the impossible partial refresh issue of a web page without having to reload afresh. Those are few good memories that I have which we could not resolve (until web 2) without the help of this once beloved Flash. I remember the things at Eye4U and 2Advance Studio guys did with Flash in 1998-2000 time. We were stunned!

And ever since everyone who had a sight of Flash abused and raped it in full time. Dial-Ups were dead hoc jam trapped. Then they had a free ride when DSL emerges because the bandwidth seems the best thing for Flash to eat. Web became all crap.

Living in a Flash for a lifetime was going be a fun or so I taught. You know, the initial web animations, banners, business scope of online advertising, then smart/ rich Flash Clients and our famous YouTube (until Apple liberated) were all based on Flash technologies. It was my hobby and then it finally migrated to my bread and butter too, the firm I work for, is too, converted it's one part cash cow ATM Client to run on Flash. I should have been happier.

This was possible cos Flash was originated as FutureSplash , a graphics software, a designer tool with industry's most hyped term at that time. Vector based graphics, further it had streaming media and animation capabilities too! It was a designer's Nirvana. Since Adobe had the graphics monopoly it was obvious that their next move would be to merge them all to be a single platform since they brought it from Macromedia. Wow! nice idea, except one fundamental error.

This is where it all went wrong. We, designers don't eat code for breakfast, nor that developers need more than a jazzed up little Notepad to do their wonders. Not until a new breed of Einsteins emerge out of this rubble who have knack to do the both.

So here we go, Flash have big fundamental errors to start with going in either direction. Below are a few that comes to my mind.

# It is utter annoyance for the end users because (No one complained yet though)
1. Having to download the plug in
2. Then take much more bandwidth and time than the normal content
3. Crippling your poor processor and the memory when in use (until recently, still for mobiles)
4. If not properly done, starts to play before the full download messing your taste buds.
(you know, it's like eating your pie in a rodent way)
6. Blinks, sings, hoots, flashes, throw flowers at you when all you want is peacefully read
5. Version conflicts repeat things all over


#It used to have knack for designers because
1. All the strengths of Flash we commonly know of content, animation, streaming media, rich client creator)
2. Having the potential to be an All In One Tool for
- Print mass media document creation ( Rival PageMaker, Illustrator, InDesign, Freehand and QuarkExpress)
- PDF corporate document creator and archiver (Acrobat, FlashPaper)
3. Obsolete old favorites like gif animations
4. Give you the partial refresh of a web page (Pre Ajax era)

#And now it try to solve a problem we never had
1. Designers like their eye candy, they want it JLO, the Photoshop way
2. Developers will eat, sleep and drink their gibberish
3. Both will co-exist together fine, but we just don't talk the same language.
4. They will be happy with just a notepad
5. We, designers want Dreamweaver equivalent

Instead another day dawned. Ajax (JavaScript which is) solved it's own problems which created back then. I was happy to see when Google and Zoho people mastered it. Apple proved me right. Wow! We can live without Flash.

But I still see some major places that I would love to visit uses heavy Flash content. I regularly use my Treo for browsing for the last three two years. I am happy Palm did never bother to port Flash for their Treos as with they neglected everything else. But do I miss what miss cause that my Treo couldn't access Flash content? Nope, not in the least. It was because Palm never updated their Garnet OS to have 3G or a better browser. It was the best when it came a six years ago. Anyway I lived the Treo generation in full which is now shaken though. Anyway let Treo begone since iPhone will probably solve the biggest problem of mobile web.

Here GX-5 is one good example, some real good talents but still insists you to install and enjoy full flash content if you are on a desktop. I had abandoned this kinda sites altogether for long. But recently I saw if you are on a mobile device that we can have a simple html version instead.

I hope at lease people will follow suit. Adobe's vision for Flash may be great, but no thank you. I don't wanna MS DOS legacy saga repeated here like even after Vista arrives. We can't carry on the burden of legacy saga or a designer becoming a developer.

People do need full blown web in a whisk without the expense of TheirTube. So the answer is no SilverLight either but lies in the same hands of the good old wizard of JavaScript itself!

What do you guys think?

I had always been a happy little shutter bug since the day I saw my first digital camera way back in 90s. Even as an collage boy I knew that this thing was going to change the way we look at the world through the third eye. Today Digital Photography has been a gift from the heaven.

Colombo Evening - So far the nicest photo I've taken with G9

No more expensive film to burn, second thoughts on whether your shot was ok, or should go for another take, digital realm made photographers' wildest dreams a so called snap. Now I see even very reluctant hardcore film photographers are making their switch being unable to deny the worlds of benefits they can get from digital film. If ever, the only thing which hold them back was the price of replacing their SLR gear to D. But that's also changing swiftly now budget DSLRs coming in prices we have never heard of.

I can't see myself as much of a photographer though from my early days I loved photography. And I was carrying around a basic digicam from the day I could afford one. Much before most of my colleagues thought of getting one, they enjoyed my immature, mostly trip photographs. I told them then the day would soon come that we all replace our 110s with digicam with the power of SLRs. Now some of them carry cameras I even envy at like new Canon Digital EOS on in their backpacks. Viola!

After my first Chinese Digicam, I stayed loyal to my old Kodak DX7440 which still produces stunning images for my humble needs even after years of use. Anyway finally I thought of giving myself a little treat getting an updated digicam.

So here comes my new G9.

I don't know how this came to be this worse. We, our selves to blame. In Sri Lanka getting into a four wheel is a very risky job. We have all the posh cars in the world but got the worst kind of roads and driving manners in the planet.

Our road manners and ehtics, boy, this is something never heard of. Everyone wants to go first, fast, but all the city roads are narrow, congested, jam packed.

Heavy long body Viking buses are killers, they cut corners, go too fast, defens you with their zillion decibel f...ing horns, overtake you in bends, mostly all of Sri Lanka's fatal accident are involved with some kind of bus jerk.

Then comes the trishaw fellows, shame on them no one has a class, manners or the patience. Cut corners, takes 90° degree turns with no signals, trying to overtake everyone elase like they can do Ferrari's. Harsh language, no smiles make them even unpleasant. And the two wheelers, cheap Indian bikes. Riders thinks they want three wholesome lane to take a mere turn, act like they own the roads, give way is never haerd of.

To worsen this harassments, now some politico has decided to introduce registration not required Mopeds. The fly fish like 50 CC bikes that go in the middle of the road. No helmets, no lanes, no manners and zig zig driving make motorists insane.

So day today driving in and outer Colombo has become life and death struggle for average people.

I don't find this surprising and obviously Wedding Plans take quite a bit of stress and running around for anyone.

When we prepare for the day, initially nothing much was done. Anyway here when dates are closing in last couple weeks we were actually ridden by this stress course.

Looking for places and people to do the needful seems interesting, quite involving. But for us this means long drives and tired weekends since things happen in three different remote places. We live in Colombo, the wedding will take place in Nuwara Eliya and the home coming is in Kandy. So this preparation is killing our peaceful weekends. I miss my long sleep in the weekend, the Sundown, unwashed clothes, uncleaned house, empty pocket and then ultimately the fresh Monday morning. Meanwhile the lack of exercising bulge my tummy out.

And this all leaves us in somewhat always tired mood.

Hope these days are will soon be over or as one of my friends put it, he says for getting married, " You'll see, it's only the beginning" :-) And I wonder will life be the same again?

Until yesterday, as Jonathan says in his post. I would too say that I was fully satisfied with my newly brought Treo 680, and in fact that it still holds true in many ways. It does just about everything I throw at it. and I love it. That said, even after 7 years of being a loyal Palm OS user, I find myself wondering in this morning, shaking more and more about something that doesn’t run Palm OS or Windows which are essentially a part of my life. Palm, Microsoft releases every darn kind of products all over the year but I have never been so overwhelmed by any other hi-tech product release. Not even with the original Treo, not even with the iPod.


The display is awesome

Listen Palm. I’m already sold. Though I’m loyal to Palm, but in many occasions I have felt that Palm isn’t treating me right as Apple does with iPod experiences. I have lived the iPod generation for two years now I am yet to get a trouble either in my iPod or in iTunes which it syncs with. In contrast since the initial Treo 650 release with problems all over, whining Palm TX which my girl has, buggy slow LifeDrive my brother brought, and my early Sony CLIE with problems that I don’t recall now.


The Interface is the Industry Best

The point is, you get a Treo expecting bliss, instead you get a hiss in your earpiece. You're thinking Palm should fix it soon.''Not the case here. Palm take ages even to acknowledge that there’s a problem at all and washes it's hands of responsibility and tells you to deal with your own ROM updates and third party developers (like VolumeCare) which figures out by some geek while Palm lies in it’s laurels. Palm never learns, even with new Treo 680 there’s a network time sync issue which circular around public forums but Palm hasn’t even acknowledge that yet. I lived it all and still I never really thought anything else as impressive as the Palm device I’m holding, until now.


Desktop scale browser in your fingertips

So suddenly, for me iPhone kills many birds in one shot. Being in Asia I’m away from holding this beauty in my hand anytime soon, not a happy feeling though good that I can save some money for the big day. Got a number of months to follow this up and close, let Apple fix whatever the shortcomings with it. No offend Dear Mr. Ed Colligan. I guess here you are wrong this time around. I work for a software company and do consider as a promoter and power user of Treo. In the next January my money surely will go to Steve Job & Co. if unless you release a 320X480/ Wifi Treo by then. If Treonauts can figure out how to make officially unsupported FAT32, SDHD, WIFI supported on their beloved Treo 650s. The iPodians will make theirs what they want in no time. The iPhone accessory market will be in prime time with all sort of QWERTY, BT keyboards, devices for what iPhone isn’t. Don’t forget Steve hinted that this beauty can handled the native Mac OS beast apps as well. I can assure it seeing the fluid motion the iPhone works, this will change the mobile industry. Smartphone segment in no time.


The flid motion is intuitive and really realistic

The business case for it, the TIME Magazine here outlines pretty well. Good reading.


Any destop widgets at your disposal

As TIME says, either it’s Nokia basic or Palm Treo 680 our phones are broken and Steve Jobs & Co. seems to fix it. “When our tools don't work, we tend to blame ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or having too-fat fingers. "I think there's almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment," says Ive. "We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we're trying to use." In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.” Exactly!

Hay, kudos for pointing out this very truth. Either in USA or in Sri Lanka, the problem and the solution seem the same. This story is inspired by the post here at PalmAddicts.

This is roughly the same way I do to get things done most of the time. These morons, the bureaucrats and the front desk officers in most of the places hardly help you out or solve any matter on behalf you even though they are paid for to "help" customers out.

So to get done things you have to raise the voice, make the point loud and clear and they may be reach a ranked man.

Two days before I went to the cinema with the girly to watch the hyped "Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest" film Ceylon Theater run Majestic Cinema in Colombo. I asked for ODC tickets (Don't know what it means, but it's the back middle rows where you can get the best view without breaking your neck), the fellow gave me two without saying anything so we went in. Assuming that they were ODC.

To my surprise the back was all full, except two middle (best view) rows saying "Reserved" .The film was about to begin. I tell the guy inside, I asked for ODC tickets so we should get one of those. Then the fun begin. He was saying that they are “Reserved” (yeah, I can read) and they have a "flat rate". There's no ODC all the blah blah and did not allow us to get a seat but directed us to the neck breaking empty front rows. If there is a “Flat Rate” the logic seems there can’t be reservations and we should be able to sit anywhere we want.

No point arguing with the poor guy. I came out, went to a guy who seemed a bit ranked one, raised my voice and told the story asking a reimbursement for our tickets.

Bingo! We were straight away directed to one of the “reserved” best view seats in the middle with no further hassle and we enjoyed the movie in full.

A suicide attack targeting Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapakse has injured fourteen security personnel. Luckily he was not injured. My friend Dilum was also caught in the middle of this crisis.

 

The attack has been carried out at Dharmapala Mawatha (Piththala Junction) opposite City Bank at Kollupitiya in Colombo today at about 10.25 a.m.


Not much clear though foremost one is our van

 

Several vehicles have been damaged and Dilum was also driving along at the same time. He was lucky to escaped unharmed though the van is severely damaged. A few of other vehicles were seen burning at the time and this photos was taken from a camera phone.

2006 November monsoon season is a disastrous one for Sri Lanka. Specially the last Sunday 12.11.06 was historic.

All of this environmental debacles in recent time has something to do with improper planning, unauthorised land fillings and buildings. It brought  more chaos and misery for this war-torn country. Floods, land slides and lost of lives reflect another abandoned and raped issue in this paradise isle. For whatsoever the excuses made by the authorities and the people, I think this should be expected and we are all responsible for this kind of nature's revenge.

The Sunday, we eye-witnessed and were lucky to stay unharmed some of the late breaking news on the TV  in the evening.


Picturesque Nortonbridge Reservoir

Story goes like this. Since we spend the weekend in Nuwara Eliya. On our way back, yesterday, there was a big land slide at the Colombo-Hatton road in Ginigathhena. To avoid that and come to Colombo we had to take an alternate route. We were suggested a route thro Nortonbridge Reservoir. It was a beautiful narrow one but finally completely blocked by all out-bound traffic to Colombo. Then few others and we turn back to Ginigathhena thro another narrow road in the Nortonbridge Caslteriegh mountains. From there some headed to Kandy road. Since Kandy road was also uncertain and very long we looked around for an alternate. For our surprise we were to find one. It was a most bizarre kind of small barren by road, a risky one, that we didn't know at that time, roughly 10-15 Km long, that leads back to Colombo main road avoiding the land slide. We came out unharmed though we seriously felt that we shouldn't have taken that road risking our beloved Chevy and our lives themselves. A slight mistake, a drift over, a gas running out, a flat tyre, anything could have left us stranded. A night without sleep.


Nortonbridge mountains

It was raining cats & bulls and as dark as midnight around 5.00 pm. Starting part of the road was okay and fun to drive when it wasn't broken. But in one particular abandoned section (nearly 10 km block) was an utter nightmare. Continues heavy rain had uprooted all the road foundation stones and rocks all over the path. Steep. Water was drifting all over like we were in a rocky stream. As driving on rollers on a wet slippery land we were descending at a slow pace. Wheels were creaking locked by pushed to the wall brakes but still sometimes the car was sliding and moving downward. Boy! No way up now either. I was praying for our Chevy's tyre's not to give up on us. Our beloved Chevy, warm and nice inside, while nature takes it's heaviest toll on it's outside, kept our spirits high, we were safe inside, or so we felt. Finally hours later we reached-back the main Colombo-Hatton Road safely.

And it's only when we came to the civilisation that we heard elsewhere in Kandy – Gampola Road a land slide was taken place with few vehicles underneath killing 5 or so people on board.

Gosh! It was a main road while we took even worse not-on-the-map road to come back to the Colombo main road.


Land slide in Kandy-Pussellawa Road killing a few people



Most flood gates were open


Imagine it could have been us

People had died here too

On the same day elsewhere in the country it had flooded many places. In Hatton Town (the way we passed) there was another land slide taking few lives. Reservoirs were filled and spilling. Most flood gates were open. Rivers were filled without their banks. People were drowning. Roads were blocked. Some leaving no sign where they were. All chaos and misery brought by the monsoon rain.

Now I leisurely lie down on my bed and jot down this blog post though It's been one heck of a day. We travelled nearly 350 km while it should have been somewhere 200 km thro the main roads.

Sadly unlike other times whole adventure was without pictures due to sub-zero visibility and all the time we were dealing road worries than getting a chance to touch the camera. Above shown ones I have picked from various media reports.