If you are in an accident, who will support us?“

If you are in an accident, who will support us?“

One fine day Peldi decided to work for himself and created Balsamiq -a mockup tool. He has taken collaborative work to fullest advantage and integrated with Confluence and XWiki quite cleverly,

I've used Balsamiq Mockups for Confluence, also used that as an independent tool. Now using Balsamiq Mockups for XWiki. With the kind of word-of-mouth the tool has, I assumed there might be a big company behind Balsamiq. But it all started as a one man start-up by Peldi. The cleverness of the team shows in their relocation of office itself !

I found this interesting read of Peldi; His words are truly inspiring, and made me think again 'do you have to work to make some one rich ?' . But could not stop laughing reading these words:

- “We’d like to buy a big license. I was wondering how long you plan to stay a one-man company for. If you are in an accident, who will support us?“

- And my world came crushing down.

To get the context of what I'm talking you should read this blog post by Peldi

Sausage: How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell at The Oatmeal

Buzz Burped !

Buzz Burped !

Google Buzz has demonstrated precisely why - and how - engineers really shouldn't be let loose with human relationships.This, of course, is the failure of the engineering imagination to deal with the reality of human interaction.

Google tested Buzz internally a great deal before releasing it (the product was called "Taco Town" during testing) but the weakness of that is that it doesn't have many people who really hate each other internally. Or perhaps none. And of course stalking would be the sort of thing that would lose you your job at Google.

It's when you get into the grey outside world though that the black-and-white certainties that Google thinks it can apply to search (but which it actually tweaks repeatedly to stave off the people trying to game the search results) break down. And quickly.

We can hope that this real-world example will demonstrate to Google that it has made a real mistake by not letting people opt very carefully in to Buzz. But the question is, will it? | Excerpt

>> Read more in guardian

Made in England - Stickies.

Made in England - Stickies.

{Photo via - www.flickr.com/photos/ascott/2380875606/}

I just got some important number via chat friend & I want to save it quickly. I just found some nice information online and I want to save it to my personal notes. I have a quicker task to followup with. I need lot of reminders and alarms to keep me on toes.

I rely on notepad to get things done most of the time. Sure, it's simple and effective way. But I was bugged up with opening notepad, do task, save and remember where it's ! Though I'v used stickies before, was not particularly happy with any of them. Mostly because of sad design or no usability.

If you are late fore the party, stickies are simple notes live on your desktop, so that you can reach out to them without much fuss. Since I work on more collaborative work environment I was in need of a sticky which ensures privacy with non-intrusive feature. I was in need of some usable solution to note down lot of info.

Viola ! After little bit of search: I found a usable and friendly Sticky program which is made in England [Made in different location for a change ;)]

Though minimal, a feature I was bowled over is - Rolled stickies have a different position to unrolled stickies: just this is enough to show how innovative this free software is ! I just love it and it's one of the essential ware I rely heavily now a days. I'm sure lot of us use paper based paper stickies very often and stick them on your cubicles. If you're little bit of concern on 'go-green', it's time to - recyclable, usable and environment friendly stickes.

>> Get stickies by zhorn-software

Search Everything.

Search Everything.

You have files, folders, pictures piled up like old library in your system. It's not so easy to search & locate the right file in heavy data centric computer system. Google understood that long back.

For the right solution I've used Google desktop, yahoo desktop search tool, Copernic, locate 32 etc etc. But no software could beat 'Everything search tool for desktop' - tool to Search, find Information in system as well as online. It's breeze & simple to install.

“Everything” is a free, lightning fast file and folder name search program that offers right-click context menu integration. It works with NTFS filesystem hard drives only because it does not scan your hard drive but rather uses the Master File Table of the NTFS volume to build its database.

>> Try free desktop search engine Everything.

Clicxpy : recording user's actions

Clicxpy : recording user's actions

What if, if you could know what visitor is doing on your website ? is he moving mouse, has he just paused to read something ? is he clicking something ? or is he filling some forms ? of has he stuck up while doing something ?

It's easy to analyze all the actions of a visitor on your webpage if he's sitting right next to you, but what if he's a random netizen who visited your site from other part of the globe ?

well, then here's the interesting and viable solution: Clixpy, a web based revolutionary analytic tool. It records all user action silently and saves it in the form form of video in Clixpy's server. It's a clever service as well from the business point of view too ! ;)

Clixpy is a web-based tool. It helps you improve your site’s usability by analyzing your users’ behaviour. When you install Clixpy on your site (by placing a small javascript code), it starts tracking everything your users do - like mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, typing, etc. Clixpy sends this data to our servers and generates "video" captures so you can see exactly how people use your site. Interface usability is crucial for a website’s success and that is how Clixpy helps you.

>> Check how it works

Iron Chrome

Iron Chrome

First round of Google approach to browser: chrome's dust is settling down with the simple feedback across netizen - "its a simple, fast browser, but I think twice to switch over from existing Firefox"

One major concern sounded from all quarters was questions about Google's policies for collecting usage data. I don't understand how schematically Google uses users search data but the concerns about data-collection potential is very evident.

If you're concerned about Google collecting your search data via Chrome, its high time that you download Chrome as Iron Browser. It's purified version of Chrome stripping all possibility of Google collecting users data. A German firm SRWare stripped of all the user ID information transmitting feature of Chrome and presented as Iron.

Iron is essentially the Chrome source code modified to suit user with privacy concern which has :

• No unique user-ID
• No user-specific information is sent to Google
• No alternative error messages
• Crash information is not sent to Google
• No Google updater

>> Try iron now

Find yourself as a poster | Photo-funia.com

Find yourself as a poster | Photo-funia.com

Find yourself as a poster of some phirang city as a fan of nice looking chicks kissing you, easy way to publish your life size photo on times square, have your photos painted on the streets, why don't you see your photo hanging in some foreign museum..

Try this:
Photo-funia.com

Google approach to browser .

Google approach to browser .

I am sure you guys are rocking with new born Google chrome. This is my first post out of Google Chrome - The google's approach to browser . you know what, even while composing this I was missing - 'built in dictionary feature of Firefox'.

I've installed it on my vista and first look impressions are awesome. It's very clean and easy to use. Though it's not revolutionary as official blog claims it: it's a blend of google innovation and components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox.

Noticeably, quite fast on google related services ! But what's interesting to note about this browser is :

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful Javascript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

The often crash reports in Internet explorer and Mozilla Firefox can be weeded out with this new avatar of browser !

It's the unfortunate fate of google, that people have started to see anything out of google garage with a monopolistic suspicion. Web is already divided over 'Does Google Have Rights to Everything You Send Through Chrome?" and google's own statement "wouldn't it be great, then to start from scratch and design something based on the needs of the today's web applications and today's users ?" Tech experts already started figuring out the negatives of Chrome.

I am hooked to web to weigh the pro's and cons in shifting to chrome from 'beloved' Firefox. Surprisingly I am still using Firefox V2.0, Reason ? My favorite extension 'Tab mix plus' is not officially released to FF 3.0. I feel kind of handicapped without that extension :D

This shows the capacity and capability of google in pushing technology and innovation to the limit. And it's simple: If you can't play the game, change the rules of it !

Photoshop CS3

Photoshop CS3

I installed Photoshop CS3 today. My favorite new feature is the startup time. CS2 takes 29 seconds to launch on my Intel Mac, and CS3 only takes 3 seconds. My second favorite feature is the docking palettes. They took me a few minutes to get use to, but I love the screen space they save on my laptop. The new docks also work great with the new screen mode called "Maximised Screen Mode".

I haven't used CS3 on an actual project yet, so I'm sure I'll add to my list of favorite new features. I was excited to see the Smart Filters, and while they are pretty cool, they're not all I was hoping for. It looks like once you have a applied Smart Fiter to a layer, the original data cannot be altered without permenently rendering the filter. I was hoping that they would function at little more like adjustment layers.

Of course, CS3 is still beta, so there's the usual minor bugs. One I've seen so far is the cursor for the brush tool is rendered incorrectly. I believe this only affects the Mac version. I've heard several people say one of the best new features is the Quick Selection Tool. I'll have to keep an open mind about this one. I played with it a little and it doesn't seem to be precise enough for detailed masked. Overall I love it, and would recommend it to anyone using an Intel Mac.

Via | squidfingers.com

Buddy, lost in programming mess ?!

Buddy, lost in programming mess ?!

While writing code, lot of issues a programmer needs to keep track of: variables, functions, parameters and their integration with other modules and pages. And as your coding away, you are reminded of other things that you have to do when you are done with the line you are writing.

Most of the times the only place where this information resides is in my brain and it will take me a good time to pick up where I left off just a few days ago.

I know that there is sophisticated project management software that will keep track of all tasks, but I have found this very simple to-do-list application that will do exactly what I need. Keep track of my programming to do list for a particular project in a simple manner. The data is stored in an XML file, so you could have it online and have oher developers access it as well. No installation required, just a standalone executable.

Anyways, you can find it here:
www.codeproject.com/useritems/ToDoList2.asp

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