The next revolution for images on the web

Sometimes it's the simplest innovation that sparks a (gold)rush. I like this new technology from AdBrite which is aptly called the BritePic. Likewise, Techcrunch claims that the technology will redefine the img tag. Check out the demo video below:



What all this means is that you can now embed additional *stuff* on images / photos, which would mean more ways to monetize one of the greatest bandwidth-hogging items on the Internet. Watermarks, logos and ads beneficial to advertisers / copyright owners, and additional community features such as sending to friends, linking, embedding and zooming (nice!)

Here's one I just created. This is a photo of my buddy, Edmund, who celebrated his birthday yesterday. He had a blast of a party in KL! Try zooming in to see his sweat beads.


Related links:

• TechCrunch: Redefining the img tag
• BritePic: official website
• AdBrite: official website

Do you live in Singapura?

You have to watch this video to learn the Singapore culture. Love the improvised theme song!



Related links:

• The Digital Movement: I live in Singapura

What does a Nokia factory look like?

Interesting photos showing the inside of a Nokia factory. I can't verify whether this is true, but the photos below do seem real. And yes, they do use humans to handle packaging!







Related links:

• Mad 4 Mobile Phones: Pictures: Inside a Nokia factory

Lao Tzu once said...

Lao Tzu:

"Silence is a source of great strength."

Related links:

• Wikipedia: Who is Lao Tzu?

Bad, bad server. No donut for you.

Can you translate the title of this post in either Hindi, Indonesian, Tagalog, Malay, Thai, Urdu or Vietnamese?

How about this one?

Google's respect and affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. If you're interested, here's our official Dog Policy. We have nothing against cats, per se, but we're a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our campus would be fairly stressed out.

If that was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy for you, then you might be the person they're looking for in Singapore.

Related links:

• Google Jobs: Localisation Editor - Singapore

The dangers of World of Warcraft

Humourous spin to WoW -- do you think it's a social disease? Click the thumbnail below for a larger image:



M is a Level 60 Tauren Shaman, and she seems to be living a normal life (now). She used to run off for raids and quests prior to her 9 to 5 save-the-planet job.

*p/s: Ivan, thanks for the link!

Hello TossBox!

Prashant has kickstarted his new blog here: http://tossbox.com/blog/

Is this your door mat?

It's not mine either, but I wish it was!

*p/s: Thanks Ranga!

Why does this Yahoo animation look so wrong?

Came across this when logging into my Yahoo! Mail.

Sayonara Symantec, Hello AVG!

I was hit by a Trojan.Dropper over the weekend. Somehow, a file I downloaded from the Ares P2P network slipped past my Norton AntiVirus. The trojan horse was designed to make use of the Symantec email proxy to send out spam. Thankfully, my email proxy was not configured, as I switched to using Gmail fulltime in 2005.



Norton couldn't detect this trojan horse, even after a full scan (2 hours, million+ files). Trend Micro's Housecall couldn't detect it either. I finally settled on the free edition of AVG, which managed to detect the infected files, and saved the day!

Tip: Install at least 2 different anti-virus programs on your machine. Configure one to be your primary / default for auto-protect and emails. It may come in handy in situations such as these where a second opinion (scan) is required.

Yahoo! Answers Malaysia

Yahoo! Answers has launched a subsite for Malaysia. Interface looks decent, although there aren't any *real* rewards for participating (besides earning points, and jumping up levels). I only found out about this after coming across a full page ad in The Star's Wknd.Metro (pg M5).

Yui Tao Mai Fun

That's the best Fish Head Noodles I've tried thus far. OK, honestly, that's the first one I've ever tried. M and I had this at Restoran DU Cafe (misnomer?) in Sunway Damansara. The stall is open till late (2am), and it costs RM5 per bowl.

Turns out that it isn't really a whole fish head in the bowl. Just pieces of fried fish. Not sure if it's from the head, but it tasted really good.

Can't wait to eat it again!

Sun Tech Days 2007: Day #2

(Yawn) Day #2 was long, and I found most sessions to be repetitive. The only highlight was Matt Thompson's keynote ("Open Source 2.0") in the morning, and the lucky draws. Oracle's keynote was poorly presented, and full of technical problems.

Some points worth mentioning:

• Solaris + AMP (SAMP): offers 20%-300% performance improvement as compared to the typical LAMP stack -- we're gonna try SAMP for some upcoming web apps!
• Java ME & the NetBeans Mobility Pack really rocks!

All in all, the Sun Tech Days was worth it. Here's to a greater conference in 2008!

Related links:

• Praveen Rajan: Sun Tech Days 2007: Day #1
• Praveen Rajan: What a NetBeans Days

Sun Tech Days 2007: Day #1

Day #1 was long! 4 cups of Java, and several sessions of the "real Java" across 3 tracks. Overall, a bunch of good sessions, excellent food and cool freebies. According to Sun's Country Manager (Gan Boon San), this year's conference was attended by about 1,500 delegates (Malaysia Boleh!)

The Technical Demo was well orchestrated. 6 evangelists on stage, each giving a 5-minute demo of something cool. Chuk made sure everyone was timed, and Angela Caicedo rocked the day with her knowledge of robotics and some GUI tech right out of the Minority Report (bravo!)

Quick note: The NetBeans Extreme session (TD6001) was too long (read: Extreme) at 2 hours, most of which was a repeat of the stuff covered the day before. However, it did reinforce how the NetBeans Mobility Pack makes development for mobile devices a rapid process -- awesome!

Here are some photos from Day #1, held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC).

A much bigger name tag:


James Gosling giving his keynote:


Mr. Gosling was emphasising the point that Java is free from virus attacks:


Toilet break. Wait a minute -- do you "wash" or "flush"?


VMware (yawn!):


Coffee break:


The weather outside was lovely:


And then, we have the Twin Towers (shot of the day?):


Lots of Dukes in sight:


Oracle's "Spin & Win" was a big hit among the freeloaders:


The event organiser did a great job with the registration process -- queues were cut down with the smart segmentation of registration lines based on the delegates company name:


Some leftovers from tea (great food served all throughout):


Related links:

• Praveen Rajan: What a NetBeans Day!

What a NetBeans Day!

It was good overall, and very well organised. The 3 speakers did a great job -- kudos to the evangelist team of Ashwin Rao, Chuk-Munn Lee and Petr Suchomel. We were also privileged to have James Gosling give an intro at the start of the day.

Today's session gave me a good overview of NetBeans. Lots of power, and the roadmap to NetBeans 6.0 looks great! Some of the sessions that got me excited today revolved around the NetBeans Mobility Pack, Project Matisse, JavaServer Faces, support for Subversion and JMaki.

The Malaysian crowd seemed passive (as always?). Large student crowd, considering that it was a "free" open day. Most seemed only interested in the tea break (good food!), and freebies at the end (t-shirts, CDs, stress balls)

Here are some photos from today. Not the best of shots, but hopefully better stuff from tomorrow's main event.

For once, they got my details right on the name tag:


That's Ashwin (blocked by the rostrum, LOL -- why did I take this?):


Chuk conducted two great sessions -- engaged the audience really well. He's Malaysian by the way!


Chuk showed off lots of his good "terminal" skills:


Petr gave a good overview of the Mobility Pack:


Transitions between various projectors and laptops on stage were done quite well -- kudos to the Sun team! This one shows a Sony Ericsson phone running an app that was created on the fly using the Mobility Pack:


Related links:

• Praveen Rajan: Rocking at the Sun Tech Days this week
• Sun: Sun Tech Days 2007, Kuala Lumpur

Want a Joost invite?

Update: Ivan got the invite for being the first one. Thanks to everyone that sent me an email. I'll be sure to dish out invites to you as and when it's made available to me.

---

Prashant reminded me that I can invite friends to Joost. I've got one invite left. Keen? First person to emailme [at] praveenrajan [dot] com, "wins" the lucky invite.



Marketing 101: Scarcity is a great way to create buzz!

Rocking at the Sun Tech Days this week

I'll be attending the Sun Tech Days this week, starting with the Netbeans Day tomorrow. If you're headed down to the same place, emailme [at] praveenrajan [dot] com. We could hook up, and take over the world together!

Beta testing Saturday with Joost

Just tried out Joost -- TV that runs on a P2P network (and that I can put on standby!). Beta version seems decent, although limited in channels for now. I've been watching National Geographic for the past hour without any lag.

Wired Mag covers Joost in their February edition. A must-read as it also provides some details on the technology which they sum up to be Lego-like -- about 80% of the technology is based on open-source / open standards which reduces the time to build and market.

Joost is the brainchild of the makers of Skype. World domination? Probably.



Related links:

• Joost: Official website
• Wired: Here comes trouble

Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs

Hilarious animated video that pits Bill Gates against Steve Jobs in the clean white virtual world of the iconic Mac ads.

How to hijack a lorry in 2007

Excerpt from the The Star Online:

Six hijackers assaulted a lorry driver, tied him up and made him lie on the driver's seat with one of them sitting on him while driving off with cargo worth more than RM1mil.

Time to work those butt muscles -- might come in handy someday =P

Why nobody uses voicemail in India

Here's an excerpt of Rashmi Sinha's post on voicemail and missed calls in India. It's interesting to note how the mobile phone is used across the globe -- something that we often take for granted:

Sitting at the Uzanto Delhi offices, I would often hear a ring or two on someone's phone, they would look at the phone and then continue what they were doing. Its a system that works quite well. In fact, its brilliant: communication without explicit communication. What the missed call means seems to depend on who it is from, time of day, and number of rings. I wonder if cell phone providers can build some type of an offering that facilitates this?

We are indeed living in an advanced society!