Making web buttons using MS Powerpoint 2007 and Macromedia fireworks

Can you believe this? I made the above web button in less than two minutes using “Microsoft Powerpoint 2007″ and “Macromedia Fireworks”. But before I go any more, probably I should clarify why I didn’t just use Fireworks or Photoshop to build the above button. The answer is that I am not a graphics designer and was never able to [...]

Preparing for the demo

As long as software demonstrations go according to your plan, they are  exciting. However, more often than not, software demonstrations end up as living examples of Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law states that “things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance”.  If you don’t believe me, checkout this amazing video on Microsoft Speech Recognition demonstration going wrong. 

Tomorrow, for [...]

“Coffee hour to go” – Pennstate Geography Coffee hour goes Digital

In a suprising and quick move, Pennstate Geography made, yet, another attempt to make sure that its graduate students do not miss “Coffee hour”. Previous attempts involved coffee and cookies, hence coffee hour , and then pursuasion and course credit (1 credit). But no form of bribe got our graduate students moving. Finally, [...]

Is your website Web 2.0 ?

Web 2.0 is ubiquitous, but what is it? Even after spending years developing web-applications, the term “web 2.0″ was incomprehensible to me until today. Today, finally, I am enlightmented by Stephen Downes’  presentation, titled “Trends and Impacts of E-Learning 2.0″. Although, the presentation is about E-Learning, Stephen spends considerable time discussing Web 2.0 and its features. Rather than explaining what a web 2.0 application [...]

PHP gearing up for semantic web

The idea of “semantic web” is not new; In 2001, Berner’s Lee described it as “an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.” However, in even after six years, web industry has rarely put into practise. One of the reason for the lacking enthusiasm and [...]