A few posts ago we talked about building our inhouse project management software from the groundup.
After writing out the document specification and thoroughly examining the project, it has been decided that we are trying to re-invent the wheel too much. Hence, we will base our software on existing project management software out there, by simply extending its feature set.
This will save us a considerable amount of time in our pursuits. It will still serve the exact purpose of which it was set out to do, but will do so much more quickly.
We are really excited and will be going live with it very shortly.
Have you ever been excited to watch your favorite YouTube video and noticed that only the first two seconds play and then the video stops?
Well you aren’t alone. This has been a well known issue with Firefox when watching streaming videos (sometimes songs too) that is quite annoying. This is an issue using the Windows version of Firefox. However, at Digitalvaliance, we have noticed this issue happening with Google Chrome as well, whose foundation has humble roots in Firefox (hence is probably the problem)
Apparently both companies/groups (Adobe and Mozilla Foundation) are very aware of the situation and are trying their best to solve this issue. One of the problems is that, Adobe is a closed source company, and will unlikely allow outside programmers / developers to look at their source code to help debug / solve the issue.
We think Adobe needs to create a strategic arrangement with key developers of the Mozilla foundation to solve the problem, because streaming Flash videos are becoming increasingly ubiqituous.
Apparently , a cure is the installtion of Flash 10, which is still in beta - however, some sites do not yet recognize Flash 10 and actually think you are running an out of date version of Flash.
There are very few times, I personally use Internet Explorer.. 1. To view our clients websites in IE6/7 and 2. To watch YouTube videos that are messing up in Firefox/Chrome.
“I am the Creative Commander in Chief of Digitalvaliance, and I am a PC”
Mac vs. PC - For the past few months, my company had been going through the decision many IT/Technology companies go through at some points in their existence. The decision was whether to delve into the brave new world of the mac or stay mundane, and stick to our good old PCs. Since we consider ourselves a “creative” company, it seemed as though the obvious choice would be the Mac. Macs were ubiqutious at my alma mater, Stanford University, and so I was exposed to them on a daily bases.
However, we would be lying to ourselves if we didn’t admit that another “allure” to Macs was the culture around their ownership. However, the new marketting campaign from Microsoft is having people rethink their views. The new marketting campaign (headed by Crispin Porter and Bugosky - the same company responsible for the funny Burger King ads amongst others) is quite brilliant in my opinion and I am surprised they hadn’t done this before. I think one of my favorite lines from their ad is that “I am a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype”. They show that despite whatever “following” Apple might have, that the reality of it is, they are by far the more dominant force. They show that they have aspiring & established people from all walks of life using PCs. They have everyone from children in developed countries to Vera Wang to Pharrell Williams saying “I am a PC”. Even if they paid Pharrell to say that he was a PC (a fact I do not know), the message is very powerful because for a while, Macs have been the way to go for music/artists.
I do not want to come across as a proponent of Microsoft/PCs.. but I did learn how to program on a PC. My dad was always tech savvy and made sure we had pretty much the latest technology. We had a Commodore 64 back in the day but I still credit my humble beginnings to the PC. I am also an avid Linux user, something that I will speak about later.
I do realize that its very “uncool” to like Microsoft or to support them, neither of which I am implying. They’ve had a series of blunders, they are a big bad monopolistic corporation and they really messed up big time with Vista and seriously, had me looking into getting a MacBook Pro (I have a few friends that work at Apple.. I was pretty much 20 seconds away on the phone from making the purchase since I could get a discount). However at the end of the day, we end up using PCs a good 70-80% of the time (split between Linux for most of our web development) and the only real reason to own a Mac for us, is to develop iPhone applications.
- We are PCs, and We make cool web sites and applications.
Released earlier, on OFFICIAL marketing items by Vodafone, one of Blackberry Storms official partners, were pictures of the new Blackberry Storm.. running an eeringly familiar OS
Oh, and we’re still waiting on the Blackberry Bold! It’s been what, 2-3 months since the first ATT reps told me they expected the iPhone to hit their stores..
Google Lab has released a new product called “Mail Goggle”, that forces you to solve a few math questions before you send an email. This is to prevent you from sending out that drunken email to that girl you might like or boss that got on your nerves..
The Obama campaign never ceases to amaze me. Their organization, fund raising capabilities and use of technology in their campaigning efforts is nothing short of incredible.
They have launched a free iPhone Application to help people campaign at their convenience, call friends (organized by states) and locate your closest Obama For America HQ.
Tired of being relegated to only YouTube videos on your iPhone or not being able to see those cool animations on your favorite site on your iPhone? Well fear no more.
Photos: PC World
Adobe announced that they are working on a Flash player for the popular iPhone. Although we are not likely to see this in the very near future, Adobe has confirmed that they are working on it and will release once it meets Steve Jobs standard. There is speculation that it wil be offered in the next version of the iPhone, with many doubting if the current or prior iPhone will ever get to see this well-sought after feature.
We wonder how the battery life will do while running computing-resource intensive Flash applications/sites. Could the ability to run Flash make it easier for disgrunted iPhone developers (See Previous Posting) to develop a Flash version of some of their offerings to get on Apple’s nerves or will Apple severely limit the capablities of the flash player/plug in, making it capable of only running a very small subset of Flash applications? Somehow, we see the latter happening..
This posting is one that we are Digitalvaliance are very excited to make. There aren’t many applications out there that make us very excited upon their release.
Drop box is a service that allows you to access your folder from any computer that is setup to do so. It keeps all the files synchronized in real time. You can think of it as CVS/SVN on steroids but with a much easier to use interface.
Dropbox sets up a regular folder that automatically synchorizes across all computers that have your drop box. Furthermore, dropbox makes your folder accessible via a web interface.
You can think of it as your thumbdrive that is always available. There have been countless times where I was pursuing a creative project but forgot an important image or asset on my main desktop PC at work. By storing all of my files in my dropbox folder, I am able to access it wherever I have an internet connection. Another great feature of the product is its speed. Because Dropbox only stores the difference (or delta) between file changes, it doesn’t need to store the entire version of the file. This makes the service operate much faster and for the team to make their service much more scalable.
If it were up to us, we’d nominate Dropbox as one of the most innovative products of the year, if not decade. File storage is not a new thing, but the manner in which Dropbox is able to make everything so seamless, is simply genius. Furthemore, they have a PC, Mac and Linux interface!!
Congratulations to the Dropbox Team on such a great product! Go sign up today and let us know what you think of their product!!
Ok Ok. Tethering isn’t exactly a web design term but we figure we might as well arm your vocabulary with as much web jargon as possible!
Wikipedia defines tethering as:
Tethering* - The connection of a non-mobile device (e.g. desktop computer), to a mobile device (e.g. cell phone, PDA) for the purpose of wireless internet access by the non-mobile “tethered” device.
In real dialogue
Joe: Man I tethered my blackjack with my laptop and now I’m surfing the portfolio at www.digitalvaliance.com. Those guys sure are creative.
NeuroSky Inc, a venture company based in San Jose, Calif, prototyped a system that reads brain waves with a sensor and uses them for mobile phone applications.
We thought the coolest aspect was the fact that they were able to develop apps that did the following:
(1) show the degree of brain’s relaxation on the screen of a mobile phone by using a visualizer
(2) show the degree of brain’s tension in chronological order after a user solves about 10 arithmetical problems (addition, multiplication, etc) shown on the screen of a mobile phone
(3) a game application to move a video game character to an intended place as quickly as possible on the screen of a mobile phone. The more the degree of brain’s concentration, the more quickly the character moves.
Everyday, it seems the lines between Science Fiction and reality are constantly being blurred!
