Famo.us : Reinventing multiple platform compatibility of web application

You could try their demo here: http://famo.us/ . It has first-person-shooter-like navigation on laptop (have not tried yet on touch devices, though it should be fully compatible).

The interesting stuff is not in the demo. It is actually in the thought process. I think it is very interesting to see how people are now pushing the boundaries of web applications although the web itself has been existent for much longer. I attached the video below.

Internet and Productivity

I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet

A very nice sharing of Internet not being the reason for you to be not productive. It's quite long, but you should get the story halfway the article :)

Cock-a-Doodle-Do

A sketch of mine for the logo of an idea me and my partner had during NUS Orbital Ignition hackathon. The idea was a site for anyone to post anything, which leads to the idea of "talk cock" thus the logo of talking cock. We didn't proceed with the idea, though.

3D Visual in Browser without Plugin

Epic Citadel

Interesting development of browser-based application. I tried Epic Citadel before on my iPad. This is the same thing in browser without any plugin needed (though it does not really in Chrome, but works well in Firefox). Web-based application is gaining attention lately for its versatility and universality across platforms.

E-Ink Tablet for Writing

Yeay! The gadget that I have been waiting for! Hope it is manufactured soon!!

Sony prepares a 13.3-inch e-ink stylus-enabled tablet for students

$2 Capacitive Stylus

I thought that was bullshit, then I experimented from some other materials. It worked!!! On my first try, I didn't have any aluminium foil, so I tried using a paperclip since I supposed it is a conductive metal. I didn't use any pen casing, only wet cotton bud (well, some call it Q-tip or cotton swab, but it is called cotton bud in Indonesia) and an unbent paperclip. So, I know the physics behind is that you need to touch the metal which touches the wet cotton for it to work as a stylus, so I did just that. Hold the paperclip with my left hand and ensure it touched the wet cotton, then I navigate the wet cotton on my Galaxy SIII. Eureka!!!

Obviously, I was not satisfied. I bought an aluminium foil (costed me SGD 1.80) and what I did was wrapped it on the cotton bud, pour water into the cotton, VOILA! Perfect stylus with a very high working degree!!! Tip or side, they just worked well!

Here is the "stylus":

What could I do with it?

These two are my attempts at using the stylus. There was no need to keep erasing and sketching (as opposed to just draw a line once). Just that my handwriting becomes quite bad on touchscreens and I just suck at drawing.

Here is my attempt at designing a logo for Pycon Sg 2013 (the S would be the python while the g, well, I just thought of a poisonous animal/bug and it would be a wasp). Again, I sucked at drawing so I scrapped the plan to develop further.

Is there a price on design? - Updated

Recently, I have been browsing through laptop catalogs. I found some that have higher price but nicer design and feel. That popped a question in my mind: do we put price on design?

I looked at Sony Vaio S Series. Indeed, for the given specification, it is more expensive compared to other laptop's of similar or even better specification such as from ASUS or HP. However, Vaio S Series has probably the thinnest profile for such size of given specification. Also, it is much lighter than ASUS better counterpart (N series). HP Envy ultrabook, while cheaper, has no CD slot (though not many using it now, but some school work needed to be burnt on CD requires it, thus the inclusion on comparison). HP Pavilion, which best spec has cheaper price, is large in term of size and heavier.

Some laptop are heavier than their look. ASUS N series comes here again. I was considering it when I saw my friend carrying it around. I wanted to see the build quality so I borrowed it from him. It was much heavier than how it looks, especially with its sleek design. HP Envy is light enough, though it is still heavier by a little compared to its look. I found Vaio S as heavy as how it looks. People like to tell me that I am a boy, so I should not fret heavy laptop. But I always like light laptop and possibly of smaller size. Possibly it is just my preference, or that I am just lazy carrying around powerful laptop that is heavy and big.

I decided to put a price on design. I deem it worth the money for all the weight shed and the shrunk size. I would not say the same thing on Mac family, though. I agree that Macs look to have better build, and obviously nothing can beat Macbook Air thin, light and sleek profile yet. But the exorbitant price on Mac may not be comparable to PC since the price put on Mac OS X may be different than that of Windows, thus comparison might not be of equal ground.

*Update:
John Ive (in a small part of the article) talks about how hard it is to measure design, because you cannot associate number with it (unlike hard drive). Probably this is the reason people do not want to put price on design; it is hard to be scaled. http://stratechery.com/2013/jony-ive-is-not-a-graphic-designer/

Docked Video - Updated

I had an idea before to dock video on the computer so that you can do other things while the video is still playing. You could move it around and resize it. Apparently, the feature is already in Samsung Galaxy Note. You could also see it featured in Galaxy Note II as on the video below. Well, my idea was for computers, but it seems that it is feasible. Hahaha. If only Google could implement it on Youtube.

*Update:

For those of you wanting similar feature, you could use Chrome Toolbox in Google Chrome. You could click on the button above the video to make it docked. There is some bug to it (occasional inability for some sites other than major video sites, occasional windows not staying on top) but it is quite neat. The extension is not compatible with Windows 8 yet. For those of you using Windows 8, you could still have the feature by making your Chrome to run in Windows 7 Compatibility mode (I can't find the official support for Windows 8, but the steps are similar if not the same).

Using Karnaugh Map To Get Check Digit Formula

In my Computer Organisation module, the class was taught about how to use Karnaugh Map and Quine-McCluskey algorithm to implement some function in simpler form. The idea of using these methods to get the formula of check digit (for example, some IDs have the letter after the numbers which are used to check the validity of the ID) just popped into my head. For example, we could assign all numbers and letters with some binary digits (probably following ASCII or just make a new mapping of characters and numbers). Then, we will compute the simplified Boolean expression and make it into a function.

The problem here would be we need lots and lots of IDs before we could compute the whole thing, because for the methods mentioned above, we often take into account the don't care condition, in which smaller samples would lead to more don't care condition which are not necessarily true, thus leading to wrong check digit formula.

What's the use of this? Indeed, I could only think of negative use of this method. Getting such formula would only mean you are just curious or you want to create a new valid ID, in which case you would only fall into two categories: you are the authorized ID assigner (which means you would already have the formula thus such method is not needed) or you want to mess with some ID (and this would be illegal).