I have joined Yahoo!

I posted about my last day in Adobe but didn’t mention where I would be joining. So just wanted to let everyone know that I have joined Yahoo! Bangalore as Web Developer.
I hope, I would learn lots of things in Yahoo! and would do some cool projects. I would post more when I learn or do something new.

Good move by Adobe: Free Flex Framework SDK and Flex Enterprise Services

I am bit late to blog about the announcement that Adobe has made about free Adobe Flex framework SDK and FES . But I wanted to express what I feel about this announcement.
I think, this is another great move by Adobe after labs announcement.

• It would make many more developers to join the gang of Flex developers.
• It would hopefully take down some traffic on flexcoders. And people would now ask better/non-repeat/tough questions.
• It would help Flex developers to come up with great components/applications based on Flex framework.
• It would certainly make Adobe more respectable among Open-Source community. I know, this announcement is not about making code Open-Source but people, who like to dig into source code, would love this announcement.
• It would allow developers to learn about different patterns and techniques used to make this awesome framework/ui-toolkit.
• Developers would be able to suggest better techniques/algorithm. It would help Adobe to make Flex framework more stable and mature.

I think, there would be some limitations in free FES, you can read details on Mark Anders’ blog.

My last day in Adobe (Macromedia)

Today is my last day in Adobe. It has been a wonderful time working here among great people. I have learnt so much about product development, quality assurance and many more things.

I met people and worked with them, whom I always wanted to see, talk to. People, who have been a source of inspiration for me. I worked in a company which made Macromedia Flash Player and ActionScript, my love :)

It’s mixed feeling today, I am sad and emotional because I would miss a great company with great culture, people/friends in Macromedia and many other things which I would probably realize after sometime. But at the same time I am excited about future.

I would like to thank everyone inside Adobe(Macromedia) and outside, who have helped me and supported me to do my work well. I hope to keep working with Adobe Flex/Flash/ActionScript in future with same passion and enthusiasm.

I also hope to be on flexcoders and other mailing-lists. I also wish, I blog some interesting and useful stuff more often, I know this has been my wish for a long time but somehow not able to do :(

The World is Flat

Thomas Friedman says that in his book The World is Flat. I am reading this book these days. This book is interesting because it talks about the globalized world in 21ST century.

I am learning many things about how call-centers, support-centers, banks, news-channels etc function to deliver services more efficiently than past. How people across the world work 24/7 on an average to make that possible, how technologies are making it easier and many more things.

Ok, I have started some general blogging. I think, that’s another way to keep my blog up-to-date until I have some more interesting stuff to share with you all :)

Is being-nice a good thing?

I think it is good but sometimes it hurts if other person takes advantage of it. Something happened, that upsets me..
So is being-nice a good thing?

No matter what happens, I would always try to be a nice person.

IBM Thinkpad or any other?

I am planning to buy a notebook/laptop. I have company-provided IBM Thinkpad T41, which I like a lot. I am fan of Thinkpad but thought to ask you folks about your choices and opinions about any other brand.

I am wondering, what all other brands are as good as IBM Thinkpad? I am looking for following things:

• 1400x1250 or higher screen resolution
• at-least 3 hours battery back-up
• compact, sleek and strong body

RAM, CPU, Motherboard, Graphics-card etc are things which, I think, most of brands provide various options for.

Oh yeah, what factors you consider before buying a notebook? Your experiences after you bought a notebook and found that you missed something while making decision.

Things to do in 2006 and onwards

• Adopt a simple life like I used to have two years back
• Have a happier life with family
• Work hard to be a better programmer
• Have a proper routine in life - sleep and wake on time, be time considerate
• Never miss a good opportunity
• Do some social work - like sponsoring some poor kids for their education in school.
• Save some money

Happy New Year

wish you all a very Happy New Year. Hope you all have a great year ahead.

There is a lot to learn

Today, I realized that I am not as good as I used to think in other areas(HTML/CSS/Server-side-languages/Databases) of web programming except ActionScript/Flex.
I have also gotten bad in Mathematics, Physics etc. I used to be good in these during school time or two years back when I was doing some games-programming.
I really need to learn lot more than I know. Need to work on fundamentals. But there is hope, learning never stops and I am confident that I would be better in all these areas someday again.
To be very honest, I am feeling very bad. I am really upset.…

Reuters starts using Macromedia Flash video in their affiliate network

Reuters has started video affiliate network, interestingly they are using Macromedia Flash Video. Brightcove is providing the technical-solution/service for this. You can read more about it here.
It is nice to see, more and more sites have started using Flash videos. I think, they understand how important user-experience is. For example, cnet.com uses Macromedia-Flash-videos in a nice manner to show the reviews/editors-choice for products. That really makes user-experience much better.
But there are sites, specially Indian sites, which are still using old-way of showing videos on webpages. I was looking at CNN-IBN website, it is quite well made but I found that they are using Microsoft Windows Player way of showing videos i.e. Click on link, that opens pop-up window with Windows Mediaplayer embedded in a page with its usual skin. Is that a good user-experience?
I have sent couple of suggestions to CNN-IBN folks:-

• Use Macromedia Flash Video
• Use Macromedia Flash(or AJAX) in some places like voting/polling applications.

I hope, they do something..