Archive for April, 2009
BumpTop : Managing your PC Desktop like a real Desktop
Apr 10th
Few years ago I saw a video on YouTube which was demonstrating BumpTop UI of managing your Windows Desktop using physics based gestures & rules of real life like dragging & dropping, piling together etc. At that time It was just a concept demo but it is possible today in form of BumpTop which will run with .net runtime 3.5 SP1 on Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7. BumpTop is using OpenGL though which makes it possible to create a cross platform application. This UI is so useful in real life, it would be a crime not to release it for Linux based touch screen devices.
The philosophy of BumpTop is to make you manage your Windows Desktop the same way you manage a real life Desktop or Table on which you work. What do you do there??? You pile things on top of each other, put sticky notes, pictures, frames etc. You get a similar experience with BumpTop just that it is inside a computer. Here is how BumpTop looks like on my PC. I wish Yahoo Widgets would go flat on the floor of BumpTop.
A better picture of BumpTop found on Arstechnica
BumpTop from my point of view isn’t that useful when used on a PC with Mouse but is extremely useful when used on a Touchscreen Tablet PC. It just makes more sense there to use it.
Here is a Video of BumpTop running I found on YouTube. It really fluid & without any performance hits even on my PC.
Ah! I love to reflex my Rake Muscle
Apr 4th
Other then what I do for living, I am good in one thing only…Talking. People usually call me a Devil or sometimes Rake, better known as a maestro of words.
I had 3 presentations lined up this week in 3 Colleges of Lucknow with the marketing guys of my company. They wanted me to talk instead of them, so I had a good opportunity to stretch my Rakeness.
Today I had presentation & seminar in Sagar Institute of Technology & Management, in Barabanki, near Lucknow with the Third Year students of B.Tech – C.S & I.T.
As usual, I didn’t take any PPT with me or anything else, I just barged in & went on to talk with the students. The students were mostly mum & taking things lightly. I tried to ask them “What you don’t like about computers & how do you think you can fix or change it"?”
I found the same complaints which I have myself faced in academic life…
1. Education & B.Tech is regarded as a way to get a degree only.
2. Students have ideas & innovation, they just don’t know how to implement it. Most of the time when they do try, they are told by the teachers to concentrate on there course only.
3. They are unable to think out of the box.
Well, the situation has not changed a lot since the time when I passed 12 & when I decided not to go for B.Tech. I told the students just one thing, To hell with the system.
The job market is under recession right now due to which companies are not hiring fresher. They are instead going for people with some experience, but students are not able to get experience without proper training. All I told them that never let an idea die. If the teacher isn’t supporting, don’t take his help. If your parent’s are not supporting, don’t take there help. Its your life & do what you think you can do instead of being told what to do. Sometimes even the parents are not supportive so we cannot blame the students completely either.
