A great find for developers to remember.

http://www.kevinwilliampang.com/post/Programming-Proverbs.aspx

“Proverbs are used to express universal truths or life lessons in a short and memorable fashion.  I find that they are a great way to keep things in perspective, both in life and in work.  Because of this, I have assembled 10 programming proverbs that every developer needs in their arsenal.”

After you have read that you may want to read this too:

Top 10 things that annoy programmers

http://www.kevinwilliampang.com/post/Top-10-Things-That-Annoy-Programmers.aspx

http://groups.adobe.com/

 This is the latest news coming out of Adobe Max 2008 in San Francisco. Its a great place for designers and developers to meet.

CNN’s holographic election coverage is fancy pantsy, but how did they manage to send 3D 360 degree footage of virtual correspondent Jessica Yellin from Chicago all the way to the station’s election center in NY?

As Arthur C. Clarke says, Magic. A magic made possible from technology Vizrt and SportVu with the help of forty-four HD cameras and twenty computers. Here are the details.

http://gizmodo.com/5076663/how-the-cnn-holographic-interview-system-works

This list will serve as a good education for students of viral marketing and also help professionals think of ideas that go above and beyond these videos.

Check them out here — http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15958470/

I came across this cool application that allows you to create your baby by combing the photos of mom and dad. Its a viral ad for VW.com It’s hard to figure out the connection between the concept of this ad and the car company. But it does get your attention. I also found this application to be too slow.

Check it out–  http://www.vw.com/vwhype/babymaker/en/us/

This one took me by surprise. Its amazing how we can find creativity.  from familiar things. See the large size– http://www.flickr.com/photos/18697966@N00/2982281565/page4/

These are some great examples of posters urging viewers to go and vote. It is something that we as designers do not do so often. We simply take a conservative approach and do not go out of the way to explore more Artistic options.  View this site– http://abduzeedo.com/inspiration-to-vote for more amazing posters

vote

Web has come a long way from its humble beginnings in the early nineties. Simple static web pages have given way to sophisticated online applications with a full-range of social media capabilities. Somewhere along the way, many Application Service Providers (ASP) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) have sprung up and flourished into thriving industries. What’s truly amazing is that ASP’s and ISV’s are spread all over the world-wide-web truly democratizing the internet and providing customers a wide range of choices and extremely attractive price points. Think of just about any application functionality – blog, forum, photo gallery, classifieds, dating site, social networking etc. – and you will find more than a handful of options ranging from free scripts, freeware, shareware to high priced SaaS (software-as-a-service) based full-fledged solutions. All of them just a proper search term and a few Google pages away…

Given this vast choice, whenever we build applications for our clients, we often face this age-old question: Build or Buy? Sometimes, we ask this of ourselves, and other times, our clients ask us. The answer to this question can have profound cost and strategic implications as we move down the product life cycle.

The answer is not always simple or at least not one that can always be arrived at with just a casual consideration. As any good project manager will tell you, the devil is in the details!

So what are some key factors that are important to consider in answering this question that usually has critical economic and strategic implications?

• Total Cost of Ownership for each option (on surface this often supports buy option, but dig deeper)
• Extent of visual branding required vs. permissible by purchased software
• Extent of functional customization required (customization is expensive!)
• Integration with legacy systems or databases (often a big factor when considering for an established business model)
• Availability of Source Code
• Technology platform compatibility – hosting, competency of internal support resources
• Application usage volume/traffic/licensing costs (per server/site etc)
• Intellectual Property issues

As you can see, when you consider all of these factors, the decision requires a thorough analysis from multiple angles – technology, legal, business, marketing and finance. A good decision avoids expensive reworks later. Sometimes, when the window of opportunity is lost or under exploited because of incorrect buy or build decision, rework may not even be an option. That can be very costly!

Learn more about web application development services, or post a comment to share with us your thoughts.

I have always admired Hybridworks website. I came across these guys 2/3 years ago when they had a out of the box design and flash. Now they have come up with something new- Desktop vacation 2008

Check them out at http://www.hybridworks.jp/

This is from their website–

Desktop vacation 2008 – “Into the sky”

“Desktop Vacation 2008: Into the Sky” is viewer-oriented content that lets PC users enjoy a vacation while sitting at their desks. The series started in 2004 (Image1, Image2), and a more detailed second part was released in 2006 (Image1, Image2). In the third version released in 2008, you can look down on a cloud-covered island from the sky. This island exists only on the desktop, for which all of the island details and clouds have been created.
The topography was designed with the outlines of sunfish and blowfish. The time switches automatically from morning to afternoon to evening to night. The time of day, viewing location and cloud formations can be changed. All you need to do is to look absently at it! Relax and enjoy.”

This is something I found on the web and maybe useful to all flash developers.

- Malicious code: Code in lots of items such as buttons, movieclips, etc. It takes a long time to see all the code. It should be nested in classes or just in some frames as much, but I find files with code in more than 50 places.

- Using variables instead of arrays. They usually use “Eval” instead of “for in”. Using a lot of boolean variables.

- Bad terminology: Something like this: mc_car instead of car_mc. Same for buttons.

- Thousands of movieclips and items in the library instead of using dynamic creation of them.

- Library Chaos: It is not so difficult to make folders: img/sound/mc/buttons

- Excesive use of timeline instead of code. One frame is enough, a bit more depending on your preload (if it´s AS2)

- No version control. So you find files names like: car_definitive.fla, car_definitive2.fla, etc.

- Magic numbers instead of using constants or stage proportions

- Code not tabbed.

- Unnecessary spaces in the code.

- No documentation or no comments at all in the code.