Archive for year 2009
Destination Holiday
Apr 20th
Destination Holiday is a Travel Agency in Lucknow. For there website, they wanted a design which was is something like a paper brochure. They wanted something which they can simply tell the user to print & it will still look good.
I started with a Paper Texture background which I later reduced a bit. At the homepage all you get is thumbnails of various place’s pictures where destination Holiday provides service & touring etc. When you mouse over any thumbnail a Tooltip opens which has some information about that place as shown in the screenshot. The tooltip is made using JavaScript
Once clicked, another page opens with information regarding the place using simple accordian. This Place content page is under revision right now which might change if the client gives further feedback.
Finally, I am also on Twitter
Apr 19th
Everyone is on Twitter & no matter how much I find it pointless, it is a good way to communicate to many people at one time, or announce something to all of them etc etc.
I joined twitter today & integrated it to my blog. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/gx_saurav
Here is the thing, don’t expect me to write everything I do in my life on Twitter, its for announcements, queries etc only. I even disabled Facebook Integration with Twitter as it looks pathetic when my Facebook page is filled with friend’s twits.
After using many Twitter clines, I am settled at Blu. It is a really good looking WPF based Desktop client. I also tried Witty which is equally good but Witty doesn’t support TinyURL while you are writing, while Blu will automatically convert your link. Now I wish I could get Witty’s notification system & minimize to tray feature in Blu.
I tried Twhirl, Spaz etc too but didn’t like them. Adobe AIR applications have very small font. Twhirl was somewhat good though as it had custom font support but the icons then were very small 
On Mobile phone I am using Tweete recommended by Manan. Its good, I don’t need any mobile clients either. Its a browser based service which works beautifully with Opera Mini.
Roundtable with S.Somasegar, Microsoft
Apr 17th
My M.V.P lead Mr. Abhishek Baxi called me few days ago all of a sudden to tell me about the urgent opportunity to meet Mr. Somasegar S, Senior Vice President of Microsoft, Developer Division. Whose going to miss such an opportunity, so I packed my bags, took the first bus available to Delhi as train tickets were not available on time & reached Delhi.
I had no place to stay so stayed with my brother in his college hostel & thanks to his contacts I was able to locate Oberoi Hotel. I reached there on time for the meet to start.
Its rare to get a chance to meet such influencing personality like Mr. Somasegar S from Microsoft who is the reason why we developers & designers are able to create such magnificent solutions for Windows. He creates the hammer, using which we chisel out the craft.
I wasn’t expecting many people but to my surprise there were many people all from there own field of expertise. It was an honor to meet Mr. Vijay Malhotra again who inspired me to start paying attention to Linguistic when we make a software at InfraniX. I was also able to meet Mr. Vinod Unny, regional Director Microsoft.
I hope I didn’t make the attendees angry by throwing maximum question at Mr. Somasegar. I asked question like integration between Photoshop & Expression Blend, Microsoft DreamSpark initiative etc. Despite of having just one hour with us, Somasegar Sir were able to answer many of our questions.
You can view all the pictures at the Flickr Photo stream of Abhishek Baxi. I am adding some to this post.
Group Photograph
Even Grace Agrees, I am still fat.
Redesigning Infranix homepage
Apr 12th
As some of you know, I am working with InfraniX I.T. Solutions in Lucknow. I was given the task to redesign the homepage of my company. I looked at the current Web 2.0 trends which is full of Gradients etc but I wanted to go with something different. I decided to go with a Wood theme because wood does looks good if implemented properly & its all the rage these days.
After looking at Smashing Magazine’s articles, convincing my boss for a wood Design & many cups of Coffee , this is what I have made in the last 4 days.
I showed to my friend Manan Kakkar, who gave me feedback that the design is tooo woody. I should reduce the amount of wood so I designed with the content area in a plane gradient. Here are 2 variations…
For the header, I made a wood board which is nailed to the primary board giving a 3D look, then for navigation bar again another small wood plank nailed to the Header Board. The textures were made in Photoshop. Its dark wood but overall with icons & all, it looks good.
The Infranix Logo is engraved in the header board like a carpenter engraves by Hammer & other tools. The navigation Icons are for going back to Homepage, or Contacting Infranix or Customer login. Clicking on the keys icon opens a tooltip made using JavaScript with user login fields
The news ticker is a simple white band. No frills where the news will come with a fade in & fade out effect.
The content boxes are wood boards inserted inside the main wood board by hammer. Content comes written on it as shown. I have used Tango Icons where applicable.
The second board is for company portfolio. There are 3 sections here created using JavaScript based vertical tabs, Software Portfolio denoted by the icon of a Monitor, Web Portfolio denoted by Globe & Downloads section where user can download demo brochure. Here I am demonstrating the Web Portfolio section showing thumbnails of the websites we have created. This is made using JavaScript & there is a slider which the user can move to right or left to see other websites’ thumbnails.
Hovering over the thumbnails will show an overlay on the thumbnail showing the name of the Website. Clicking on any of the thumbnail will open that website in a new Window.
Below the portfolio section I created a bar showing all the technologies we use in our company & servers.
On the right hand side I have given sections for an Animation of 24X7 tech support, Logos of our clients slides in the Clients section & a user can Request for a Callback after filling the Quote Request form.
There is also a button which will open the page with Media & Events happening at Infranix.
I am designing the content pages right now. As soon as they are complete, implementation will start. I am trying to keep the use of Flash to as low as required as everything can be done using JavaScript, AJAX & CSS Animation (though less supported).
Now I hope my Boss won’t restricts me saying this website looks like that of a Furniture shop due to which the design might end up like something else which I don’t want.
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.
