flash - sparkle, Flex - ADML , now PDF - Metro

Microsoft aims "Metro" at Adobe
(article on computerworld.com.au)

The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named "Metro," to print and share documents, Microsoft said Monday. Metro appears to rival Adobe Systems's PostScript and PDF (portable document format) technologies.

Metro was demonstrated during Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates' keynote at the start of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) on Monday in Seattle.

The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.

Read the complete article here

Flashy site names on the web:


timeline.com
stage.com
tooltips.com
onclipevent.com
onrelease.com
onconnect.com
ondata.com
onload.com
localtoglobal.com
globaltoLocal.com
onenterframe.com
gotoandstop.com
gotoandplay.com
stop.com
play.com
netconnection.com
netstream.com
getbytesloaded.com
fscommand.com
extends.com
untitled.com
untitled-1.com
nextframe.com
currentframe.com
geturl.com
sharedobject.com

I'm sure there are tonnes more like that, I couldn't spare more time into that. You people can add to this list, by commenting on this post. :-)

Adobe and Macromedia - its final now

For a long time now, there has been speculations about a possible merger between Macromedia and Adobe. And it’s final now.

Abobe has arrived at an agreement to acquire Macromedia.

www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

stay tuned, for more news.

Am listed in Flash MX certified devs list at last!!

http://www.macromedia.com/v1/handlers/index.cfm?ID=24175#M

Vishu

Am going home, this weekend. Applied for a leave on Friday, and extended(!) this weekend by a day.

Btw, tomorrow is 'Vishu' in kerala, and 'Tamil new year day' in tamil nadu.

In karnataka, 'ugadi' was celebrated last weekend. And a friend who works at Dubai, had blogged about missing ugadi celebrations back home. I started commenting on her post, and that comment went on to become big enough to qualify to be a post by ifself :-) I thought I'll copy it in here.

This is how it goes.

....Well, in kerala the equivalent of Ugadi is called 'Vishu' and in tamil nadu, its just tamil new year day. And they both fall on the same date - April 14th.

We do have all these poojas and stuffs there too, but the coolest part is, I was not supposed to wake up (rather open my eyes), until my mom wakes up, arranges lot of fruits and jewellery and money and many more things in the pooja room, and finally comes to wake me up, and blindfold me with her hands, to take me to the pooja room.

We were supposed to see the most prosperous things when we open our eyes on this special day. (poor thing, no one does that to my mom!)

And as a kid there was much more fun on that day.. We, me and my sisters, were given 5 / 10 Rs on the morning of Vishu, by my parents, and were let out to all the other elders in the family. And we used to compete, over who collects the most money from others. EOD, I used to collect like, some 25- 30 Rs.

And as I grew up, my role slowly changed, from being a observerer of all this fun, to being a part of the organizer.. I had to buy my mom all the fruts, get her that special yellow flower she would arrange in the pooja room, get my dad a lot of change in form of Re. 1 coins to give over to kids coming home the next day, and late at night, helping my mom arrange stuffs in the room. And finally when my mom comes to wake me up on Vishu day morning, I would fake to be asleep, just get feel the fun.

This time my collection would go up to as high as a 100Rs!

Later, things changed.. somehow I started drifting away from all this...

Last year I was home, for Vishu, and I had a chance to give over money to my dad, mom and sisters. I gave them all 500 each. Man, I did feel proud to that, though I had to wash out my bank balance :-)))

And this year, I am planning to be there, the next day, after Vishu..

Life sometimes, is too unfair.. It is..

And I do remember all those 'sweet chapathis' or 'obattu' tat you used to bring.. It was for Ugadi right ?

Hmm.. sweet old memories!

---------------------------------------

Well, this year, I am gonna miss all that fun. I almost know how I am going to welcome this new year; by sleeping off at 12 or 1 - waking up late at abt 9 AM tomorrow - forgettiing everything about Vishu - rushing to office.

Thats the way life is.

Google Maps

Came across google maps. They have added a new feature, which uses satellite images to show maps. Hell good!

I see Google is full of technologically the best people. My only concern is, why dont these people start using Flash! And if they start using Flash for their initiatives, We would have some of the best applications done in Flash, on the web.

should I change my blog's name ?

There is something troubling me for a while now..

My blog's name... Its "Flash AS and Me" but I see that I havent made much (in fact no**) posts yet on Flash or AS(ActionScript). It just reminds me of some old piece of writing, where the author talks about people having names that dont necessarily match who they are. Like 'Kannayiram' (means 'thousand eyes' in Tamil) being the name of a blind man; 'kodeeswaran' (means 'millionaire' in Tamil) being the name of a beggar, and so on...

Now I think, I got 2 options. Either I change the name of this blog, which is fairly an easy option, or start blogging something about Flash - Well, thats the tough option. a little bit of 'idealistic' thought tells me, I should start blogging something about Flash. After all, thats the technology that has helped me reach where I am today :-)

So, viewers of this blog **(are there any :o)** will get to see a few Flash articles / posts in here occasionally.

After all, I am a 'Flash'er!

Advice to Computer Science students

There has been a very few of my juniors enquiring, about how to approach the IT industry. I was just having a casual browsing session and came across this article, which gives some advice to people graduating in computer science. Thought it might help someone.

Credits to Joel

Gmail mailbox has grown to 2GB!!

Prepared to face the threat from Yahoo! about increasing their mail box sizes to 1 GB, Gmail has increased their email box size to 2 GB.

And, ultimately the customers the king :-)

What more, WE have rich text formatting in gmail now. Woohoo!