Why uglier the better?

It’s a tiny chip from my busy UI work station.

Telecom rocks everywhere, especially when it's wireless. True, it's a hot segment. Life is barren minus communication. Pardon granted to network jamming in Bangalore. With a new brand guidelines, international presence over wireless -knowledge transfer, ultra catchy UI specifications I started my new tenure. Days are yummy with aah! like coffees, toffees, ultra thin LCD's, tightly scheduled meetings, compact neo designed cubicles, hot & sour fms, flexi hours, music flowing into earphones...


I'm delegated to understand, overhaul, redesign, refurbish, uplift the GUI of one of the successful application.I built a fair idea about the app from usability perspective. I pinged my architect to fathom the ratio of demographic application usage & web usage stats. His reply was simply astonishing. It's one of the most widely used application & is buzzing global wireless circuits in a macro sense. I was much keen on product user count, though it has less impact on my cubicle informtion architecturing & laboring !

Reason was simple. It looks like a legacy design with a marginal effort on styling & presentation. It resembles 3.1 window interface in a neo era of dynamic applications. It seems technology arrived prior to design in choked interface, aborted usability, hard coded xhtml & forbidden CSS ! Obviously, It was designed way back in '97, where UI designing has less prominence over functionality. Till date only functional updates are upfront. As a result usability & accessibility lacks to the core. But in P/L margins it's a best- of-the-breed in the par-applications segment. It's packed with tight application framework and vested with powerful technology available around.

Interestingly, it's built by one of the finest software firms of India, which is accountable for Silk Board traffic choking every morning in Bangalore !

In placid words, it's nothing new. It's a common phenomenon that applications very frequently undergo re-skining. Instantly, the query birthed like a tiny bug inside me and started nagging in 24/7 ishtyle*.

Why ? even the saddest looking applications do better business contrary to impressive ones. Why uglier the better? Why users hardly raise a flag against interface-less apps. What matters a most? The so-called 'Goodwill' factor Or the intelligent brand strategy? Comprimising nature for a good service or a strategic marketing of the company? Lack of know-how on clean UI or not bothering about it at-all? Why Slashdot rocks? Is it because of content or speed ? What matters most ?

Today, all these doubts're resolved with this nicety blog of Aaron. It's a must read simple post if you're using Gmail & Microsoft etc & STILL have queries about the sloppy interfaces.

* style, manner, in a way.

End of DVD era ?!

Holographic-memory discs may put DVDs to shame.

A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more data is set to go on sale in 2006. The disc stores information through the interference of light – a technique known as holographic memory. The discs, developed by InPhase Technologies, based in Colorado, US, hold 300 gigabytes of data and can be used to read and write data 10 times faster than a normal DVD. The company, along with Japanese partner Hitachi Maxell announced earlier in November that they would start selling the discs and compatible drives from the end of 2006.
"Unlike other technologies, that record one data bit at a time, holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in parallel with a single flash of light," says Liz Murphy, of InPhase Technologies. "This enables transfer rates significantly higher than current optical storage devices."
The discs, at 13 centimetres across, are a little wider than conventional DVDs, and slightly thicker. Normal DVDs record data by measuring microscopic ridges on the surface of a spinning disc. Two competing successors to the DVD format – Blu-ray and HD-DVD – use the same technique but exploit shorter wavelengths of light to cram more information onto a surface.

From the NewScientist article HERE:

Color photos taken in 1909 !


When K.Asif started shooting for 'Mughal-e-Azham' in 1914 he had less hopes of processing it in color mode. More over cine-photography was merely constrained to Grayscale or Sepia mode then. Color photography was a thing of distant dream & digital imaging technique to colorise photographs was unavailable then. Contrast to the same, I found something very interesting here which disputes that perception. Read this very interesting stuff on color photography here:

"Color film was non-existent in 1909 Russia, yet in that year a photographer named Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii embarked on a photographic survey of his homeland and captured hundreds of photos in full, vivid color. His photographic plates were black and white, but he had developed an ingenious photographic technique which allowed him to use them to produce accurate color images."
This is quite possibly the most fascinating thing I've read in a LONG time. I've sent this link to lots of people. Amazing, that's all I can say…
Read more.

Wow ! this is thrilling...

Sand Safari
" Being in a land of sand, in Dubai the most popular mode of transportation are the SUVs. Usually, over the weekend or during the holidays, folks go over to the dunes for some fun in the sun - A Desert SAFARI. We also do a lot of sand surfing too :)

The desert safari in these SUVs is an experience to cherish. It actually feels like you are in a ocean floating with the high tides. However, if you are in the drivers seat, you certainly need some training. Safari is always done in pairs... coz if one car gets stuck, the other one is always there to pull you out :) "
Flickr Link

Night, Candle & Sony DSC-F828 Cam


Photography tryst in a candle light.
- Flash free focus.
- Shot on night mode.
- 4x optical zoom.
- Pod for stable zoom.
View complete night mode gallery here.

Checkout one more amazing thing based on Flicr-Photo community. Search for Flickr-Photos by drawing sketches & retrievr lets you search for photos on flickr by drawing sketches of them. Searching, identifyng, indexing images based on sketch is quite astonishing thought. Truely it's beyond imagination if it works as intended.

http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr

Sweet Miro.


Wish you all a grand new year & enterprising time ahead. By now, most of you all might've framed new year resolutions in disguise. Don't forget to break each of them. That's where the thrill is ;)

It's my first post in new year '06. Come let's meet junior, Miro. I'm sure you'll go 'fida' on him. He's so cute that his smile drives you crazy. His momma has posted his snaps chronologically. Specially, read his momma's note below these snaps. They are humourous & pun-filled.

Check this teeny weeny cho-chweet kiddy Mr.Miro here.