Hmmmppfff… after a long debugging and bug fixing, here I am 20 minutes to 2 AM. But that’s not what I want to write about.
I want to write about Pocoyo, a pretty new cartoon (well, not that new… The first release was in 2005) for pre-school kid. Pocoyo is a little boy and during the cartoon show, he is accompanied by his friends, Pato (a duck), Ellie (an elephant), Lula (a dog) and Sleepy Bird (ehhh… a bird).
This cartoon is so hilarious and funny. Its focus is mainly about Pocoyo’s curiousness to the world around him. The cartoon teach some basic values in a very simple way, even simpler than Sesame Street or other child’s TV program.
So, if you have to take care a little kid, this show may be helpful for you. This video below is just one example. For more just go to Youtube!
Want to know the new features of Wordpress 2.6. Here is a short video for that.
The introduction of native application in iPhone and iPod touch made me wonder. With such revolutionary breakthrough in game controlling, will this device finally redefines portable game market?
In pre-iPhone era, portable game market is led by two big names, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Both have high resolution graphic display, but that is. There is no revolutionary improvement for their control. Players still use the same buttons used in old portable game consoles. Judging from that, even that the devices also have WiFi connection, we can safely say that both consoles are created merely for gaming.
iPhone and iPod touch came through different road path. Both devices are created not for gaming. They have superb audio visual capability but as we can see before, there is no game available for the devices. People used the device as mobile phone or as music/video player.
Together with the new iPhone SDK introduced by Apple several months ago, people saw the new prospect of the device. No less than 43 games are introduced in the first day of the AppStore. Their revolutionary touch control and tilt sensors are just perfect for portable game device. Depends on the game, the whole body of the device can act as steering wheel, as tilting table, as music instrument etc.
In my opinion, this will somehow redefine the portable game market in the future. The only advantage that PSP and DS have right now is the fact that the game industry is in their hand. They have more games and the device itself is already associated directly with game.
For Apple to catch them, it needs to introduce more games (and quality ones) to the devices. Sega with its Super Monkey Ball is a great sign for the future of the device. But more games are needed before it can take significant portable game market.
So what do you think? Will Apple redefine portable game market?
From: http://tapestryjava.blogspot.com/2008/06/time-breakdown-of-modern-web-design.html
Summer is coming! My favorite IDE will release its newest version in three weeks. This time it will be released with code name ‘Ganymede’.
Here are the things that I like in the next release:
- SVN client. The client is more integrated and more Eclipse-like since it enters Eclipse incubation.
- Ruby support as part of DLTK.
- Cleaner update page.
- The Eclipse Compiler for Java now takes advantage of multiple CPUs. This will be only one thing, it will be faster!
- Full JavaScript support with customizable formatter and templates.
- Old Eclipse’s project can’t use classes that is located in the external place. You have to either wrap it as jar or copy it to the project
- Formatting now can be done only to the edited lines. This is very useful sometimes when editing someone else work. And better yet, you can undo the formatting in one step. Before undoing format is a headache since the cursor can move awkwardly to random position.
What still missing from this release are:
- Visual Editor. I miss this editor. Mantisse and other editors are just sucks in my opinion. Visual Editor is the smartest GUI editor concept I’ve ever found. Too bad that its development is just stucked.
- Eclipse needs decent UML editor, unfortunately IBM still doesn’t want to open source its Rational product.
- Project templating. Sometime I want to store a project configuration to be able to create the same project with different name. It will be nice if Eclipse support this in the future.
A while back ago, I posted an article from McKinsey about eight business technology to watch.
In the end of the article I appended my own principle, “Don’t be evil”. I added this since I believe that companies that try to do good think will not collapse because of what they does.
Now I want to share my new knowledge about one company that does more-than-what-customers-expect. The name of the company is Zappos. Its main business is selling shoes using Internet. If Amazon is for books, then Zappos is doing more for shoes.
Zappos is a company that really put service before anything for its customer. The tagline in its home page reflects this, “We are a service company that happens to sell”. And yes, they really show this. What they do is really selling the service. You can get good shoes in many stores but not many stores sell good service. Not only they give what you can expect from an online company, they actually give more… This is kind of attitude that is NOT really expected by its customers. But who doesn’t like nice surprise? A bunch of positive testimonials shows how such attitude is missed by many people.
Its standard service is already astonishing. 4-5 days FREE delivery. Amazon (U.S) can only promise free delivery when you don’t mind to wait for more that 1 weeks. Friendly return procedure and customers even got UPS mail tags in the delivery package for FREE return shipping. We need to look hard for such service in other companies. In my experience, even if a company guaranteed easy return procedure, customers need to pay for the return shipping. I remember that there are several exceptions, but not many.
And have you found other company that asked its customers when they don’t receive your return package? Zappos is doing that. Along with that, its friendly customer service upgraded the service and gave the customer personalized service that can only be found when you’re an important customer. I don’t think customer who bought 7 pairs shoes and returned 5 of them has ever found this kind of service somewhere else. Shame German companies! Their evil-written-in-tiny-weenie-bity-and-hard-to-understand-contract-agreement trapped many foreigners and even Germans themselves.
Which companies are still providing direct phone number in the web site and actually processing each call by an operator? Zappos puts its hotline in each page of its web site and the hotline is connected directly by human. Oh no… Apple doesn’t do this. Not Paypal, eBay, or Amazon. Heck, even U.S. General Consulate in Germany processes its interview schedule with machine. Most of the time you just have to redial several times before actually speaking with a human.
And who else pays bonus for a worker when they quit? I really can’t comment this fact and how ingenious is the Zappos management.
So… 68% just mean nothing.. you know…
This is what is called creative… Surely some of us had trouble with cable when charging our device. This solution is so elegant!
from LifeHacker
They who ever learnt programming algorithm must understand this funny comic strip.
Travelling Salesman Problem
From: xkcd