I’m Jacob Thomas

2007 was a very good year for me, if blogging is concerned. I had some great events which revolved around this blog. Last year i switched from wordpress.com to an independent blog at dynz.net. It was part of the ‘togetherness initiative‘ by the dynz. My co-workers blogs got attached to our company website and rest was the same.

Recognitions: 

In August, Smashing magazine selected my 404 page design for their ‘404 pages’ inspirational post.

That’s what does when you get listed in some popular blogging directories. Almost half of my traffic have come via Smashing magazine. Thats an incredible jump in Alexa rankings, link backs, back urls etc.

One Down!
In September, I celebrated my first year of blogging (a blog post..so much for the celebration.) . It listed down some of my prominent milestones in the last year.

Redesign: Only one redesign was applied to this blog, Sed.  As I said earlier its 404 page gained massive recognition. However i had released a lot of concept blog themes which ultimately had to be scrapped off!

Functions: As a medium to convey my ideas , my blog has helped me a lot. It made me reassert some facts in life. It made me think and review. Some of my common incertitudes were clarified with some excellent discussion.

Well, I wish 2008 would be even better.

This post is a bit on the philosophical edge of my unintelligent understanding. Still, What i am saying is absolutely true and is well supported by reason and personal experience.

Rule 1: You do not have to flatter your teammate’s work on the basis of any emotional, personal or intimate relationships. If you find any problem in the task done by the member of your team, do make the point clear with some suggestions.

Rule 2: Its “Give and Take!”. So when the advice from rule no 1 is FOR you, do listen with all your inbuilt qualities of patience and cool stretched to the maximum. Getting worried over the advices is a big mistake.

Rule 3: When you feel you have done your job, make sure you ask yourself “Is there any room for improvement?”.

Rule 4: Probably the most important rule of them all. Respect all your group members’ advices, suggestions and take all what you think is right. Your group is one which is defined by the similarity in ideas, mindset and skills. Your teammates won’t be asking for changes which make the entire work go look so bad.

Rule 5: A leader is an essential part of a group. He is the one who is supposedly managing every resources available to the group. But the selection of a team leader should be done with the qualities of selflessness and confidence fixed as essentials.

Rule 6: ‘Trust’.A personal bond between two persons can be termed as a ‘trusty’ relationship. The word has a whole new level of importance when it comes to a group. In a group of different people with different views of perspective, it natural to develop a tense, unproductive environment. So mutual trust in the work of other team members is a requisite.

Rule 7: When you are a member of a clan, making your own decision is invalid. Every decision is to made through a meeting with atleast a majority of the members present.

Rule 8: Be yourself. Imitations will be costly. One wrong step and the way your teammates think about you will change forever.

Rule 9: Never set yourself personal goals inside a circle of professionals. It can affect your contribution to the group and finally it results in your talents being speculated upon.

Rule 10: Work is not always interesting. But if you can discover how to work for fun with the purpose of learning it sure will be interesting.

Well it was just a page when i designed this blog. I simply entered it into the ‘404 error page competition‘. They liked my idea and quite surprisingly they tagged me under ‘Being Poetic’

“Jacob Thomas quotes Winston Churchill and informs lost visitors that the page they’ve been looking for seems to have been burnt down by a puckish elf called ‘Prontyr’.”

That quote thing was supposed to a random quote generator with lots of quotes showed. Too bad they saw only the Winston Churchill quote.  At least some part of this theme got some recognition.

“

• The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

• This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
• If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject’s name, it will happen.
• If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
• After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

“

Well…What can i say…You wont find the jittery glitzy action sequences of classics like Naruto or Bleach. Not even a single modish punch offered in the story. Its all about the style…absolute style in speech.

Usually, when i used to watch anime like Inuyasha, Bleach etc.I always could sense what was coming next…predictive to an extent but in Death Note. Man! I couldn’t keep up with the storyline. I was actually seeking my player to the previous section every now and then. The story is well etched into a very strong drama with elements of suspense and uncertainty of the main plot lingering almost in very second of meaningful conversational crossfire between ‘L’ and ‘Kira’.

Yagami Light, our central character is so surreal and an ideal student. No offense, but i don’t believe in a student who goes on scoring 100% in his University entrance exams (WTF!) after he is on a killing spree which takes up precious energy and almost the living hell out of a high schooler.[Later this kid is said to be a junior champion in tennis!] But then! Shinigamis’ and the Death Note itself isn’t real! [Silly me!]

Well there is no denying the fact i was very much engrossed in the anime much because turning a crime ridden society into a perfect ‘Utopia’ requires some good story line and emotionally inviolable characters like Light and L. Well now its the perfect time to introduce you to Death Note (awkwardly pronounced in Japan). The ultimate synonym for death. This useful gadget (contains no microchips and ICs in it and is not made in Germany!) is known for defining the inevitable death itself of a person with suitable extensions. By extensions, I mean the time, place and the way a person can be killed. Light uses a series of experiments on very immoral, perverted prisoners and criminals to test his limits with Death Note. Owned by a shinigami named Ryuk (quite funny, contrary to the normal Death God…looks more like a hollow from Bleach), the Death Note was accidentally dropped into the hands of Light.

One the other hand the mysterious and weird Mr ‘L‘ surprisingly a teenager with another 100% in everything.(Boy! I really hate university rank holders!). ‘L’ seems to have innumerable number of aliases for himself and at such a ‘tender age’ he is a known entity among the FBI (haha,another good one!) as he has solved for them, some serial murder case in America. With a faithful assistant (Servant??) named ‘watari‘, he is helping the investigation team to track down the the famous ‘Kira’.

Thats enough of story telling, but i am impressed how the director has transformed a slow, rather sloppy theme into a ‘nail biter’. With gutsy dialogues , strong characterization,effusive emotional pauses and the plausible look of ‘Death’ in Death Note, It sure is one good anime you don’t want to miss out. I will be back after some more episodes.Later!

[

• The author has seen only the first 10 episodes.
• He likes watching anime.
• This review is strictly a personal viewpoint.
• The author hasn’t seen the live action Movies of Death Note.Please donate
• This review is in no way eligible to be an ideal critical appreciation (Its crap!I know)
• Warning Spoilers!. lol now that you have read it this line doesn’t really care, right?

]

Image Courtesy:Aniyume

The very first time i saw a website(probably yahoo), i didn’t want to read the content in it…rather i searched for “making a website”. Yes! That search didn’t make any sense to a 6th grader back then but i definitely knew one day i would know it for sure.

Years have passed by, Here I’m celebrating what’s best know equivalent my life right now.

Opdyne.

During my days at Loyola, i used to hear stories about our seniors doing amazing things in the’ webosphere’. During my long, boring vacation after my entrance exams (which i messed quite bad!), i was searching for a good, productive way to spend time.Reading some blogs was a main cause for the initiative to start Opdyne. As always had a liking to do something creative all that time because some weird, uncanny instinct makes the work quite fun for me!

I started slowly… reading small tutorials in Photoshop (the glass orb was a good start!) . I realized that i had something to survive in the the hostile world for a newbie. After that i did watch arun (already established artist) at work. The way he produced wonderful computer generated imagery with a handful of harmless clicks and curves really got me inspired to be glued to the PC for the next two months.

“…emerged from the cocoon, was a beautiful butterfly fluttering in the wind with gracility and charm. Quite sensitive were its receptors to the outside world, spreading its beneficence to every single object in its surroundings.”

OMG! Sorry but that was a sudden emote due to all ‘excessive grammar classes’ i had with DP(once in a year). Well, anyway i got into full swing after that…. jumping around frantically like a monkey from the ‘branch of code’ to the nearby ‘design tree’. It was fun. I really enjoyed learning many new and exciting things at Opdyne. I may sound like i am going to stop tomorrow but have “miles to go before i sleep”.

This is not any devkit or anything that is meant for making new classy web products. I prepared this image templates for a site associated with the Dynz network. Later we had to switch to a different color theme so these remained untouched. That means anyone who feels like seeing the source of these images can download this web pack, customize, rip and create even better image work.

Well … The download button in this pack is created using Maxon Cinema 4D and Photoshop. The tutorial for creating that button is creating such an image is listed at Opdyne.It explains some of my unorthodox methods of dealing artwork with Photoshop.

I am a windows application programmer…i don’t know whether i can boast about it anymore? The first few years of my programming life were concentrated around visual basic and windows application development. Back then i didn’t have an internet connection(, probably one of the bigger reasons why i evolved away from being one). I created a few applications based on some loose codes from planetsourcecode.com. I really enjoyed it! Every bit of code. I was very inquisitive of the how the softwares were made and that led me into a very simple but exciting world of VB. (I was 14 back then.)

Once i got older (and when i got an internet connection) , i did sense a migration into a much more wider, more reachable platform..the web itself. I was truly inspired by lots of wonderful websites from various design showcases including webcreme, cssremix, cssmania etc. Soon i was exercising my artistic talents and was frantically trying to learn the skills of many accomplished designers. (I used to go ‘wowwwwww.’ seeing some of the websites created by avalonstar.) My entry into professional web development was marked by the founding of Opdyne; a group of young developers, designers, and programmers.

Opdyne has now evolved into a professional firm offering many design solutions with decent quality.(We won’t blab about exquisite designs now as we are still learning.) Now that i look back i find it very difficult to understand whether i would have become an accomplished developer. A few applications like a hapless media player(Neu + Media Player), a CD/DVD indexing software(Thikset) are not enough to make one an expert in that field. Another of my ventures in application development was a CD presentation maker for an event including features like video encryption, authentication module , a fully featured media player , a scriptable interface with advanced skinning options(XTOOP CD).

Just because i am spending all my energy in web development these days doesn’t mean i am done with my old passion. I hope i will be able to complete , many of what i still want to achieve in that field.Presently there are lots of things to finish in Opdyne with release of LF and many other projects slated on immediate dates. Later!

At one glance , an innocuous word, ‘inspiration’ may seem to be related to the great paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci produced due the influence of Verrocchio, his teacher. Inspiration is usually associated with art and design.

In olden days, inspiration was thought to of a divine nature. The people believed it to be a gift of god. As time traveled across centuries of development, renaissance and revolution this inspiration found new meanings. Nowadays it is concerned with education,personality, paintings (abstract art too) and websites . Inspiration has found new galleries to showcase themselves in different mediums. They are umpteen inspirational personalities, masterpieces, materials and products available now(which makes me think that there is hardly anything divine in it anymore.)

I would like to center this post around ‘web inspiration’ a rather new term which has many possibilities of advancements and ramifications in different directions (and the way it gets corrupted by rippers and plagiarists). Before we get into this topic let me show you one of my works. A simple cover i did for my college magazine and the art that inspired me to do it(the one on the left is mine).

Well as you can see the better one is the original found from here .

First Question!.Is my art a rip of the other? The fact that I’m calling the other one ‘an original’ is itself an assertion of the fact that i borrowed a lot of ideas from ‘the time‘ by Nazan Dedeoglu. Borrowed? uh oh! I don’t know Nazan. Borrowing without his consent is stealing right? Assuming the above case to be true i rephrase my statement. I stole his art!. But then in my defense i have a sweet word which is manipulated by every known ripper artist in the world(i’m not one,in any way).

Inspiration .

Boy!Haven’t we always wondered what the difference between the words Inspiration and a Rip means.

Many websites have been on the lookout for Web rip off! On such site is pirated-sites.com.(check out their more believable Flickr account with screen shots) Obviously the hapless culprits tried to model upon the the original site,(starting from pure inspiration), slowly accumulating a lot of the parent website features and finally transforming into a truly fascinating rip of the former. Most of the websites under attack are from people in the same circle of involvement, say Web design studios. The best part is the style how the original creators write about their ripper counterparts! They go commenting from ’shameless f**king @#$%@’ to ‘nice try buddy,better luck next time. While most of the counterfeits are dismissed off with a ‘disgraceful act’ tag, the clicks to the uri keep increasing dramatically, (increasing the link popularity dumbo!). The ripped sites are usually replaced with more impressive original creations in very short time.

Inspiration usually is accepted if it is about using the styles of the original artist in a different way with his/her flavor mixed in it to produce an completely different art.Whoosh!Thats all i can squeeze out of me. Besides it all depends on what the original artist thinks about his alleged rip off art.

FOOTNOTES:

1)My art was not used in any profitable venture or my college magazine( ,they rejected it because it was too complex a concept of time!) or was not sold to any enterprising group. Besides i still think it is an inspired art. Oops there we go again!…

Now that the internet is on a turbulent ramification in all directions,many old concepts are being reiterated on the basis of developing technology.One such concept is Desktop.Yes desktop..the place where you have your ‘My computer’,'Recycle Bin’ and many more of your tools you need to survive in this advanced period of time.What about this desktop?You may ask..Nothing has really happened to it nor am i going to critique some new widgets or applications.The concept of desktop has been refurnished to an online adaptation.Online Desktops..Webtops.David Bouley explains it well in the home page of EyeOS.

Imagine being able to sit down at any ordinary computer in an Internet cafe or public library, start up the resident web browser and access your personal desktop - along with your applications, messages, and information - with a click of your mouse button. Then, when you’re done, you simply close the web browser to have all of the documents you’ve just worked on safely stored on your remote server, leaving nothing on the computer you’ve just been working on. This is the goal of the mobile desktop and operating system called eyeOS.

EyeOS is one such website described as “the Open Source Web Operating System.”..Open source hmm..Absolutely a FREE zone,Guys!!.You can check its live demo here .

The term ‘webtop’ is said to be coined in 1996 and is also known as ‘network oriented desktop’.The topic being new to me lead me to an unexpected array of vast web based applications.To name a random one.Writely,The Web Word Processor,which though is related only to documents is impressive.What sucked me into this was when a friend suggested to me about ‘Desktop two‘.A site which offers the users the look and feel of a desktop.So does eyeOS post an impressive version of a webtop tagged under freeware.Desktop two offers upto 1GB in the free account.

The features include

• Address Book
• Blog
• E-Mail
• Global Settings
• Hard Drive
• IM
• Programs
• Mp3 player
• Office suite

That’s a lot right.Wait till you hear the rest.The latest entity in web development,Ajax,creates a new class of such webtops know as online Ajax desktops.You should have come across small sites that allow you to tag,bookmark and arrange your contacts,favourites etc right?.But you always found it to be hard organising all these information.That’s when such webtops come in handy.
Dion Hinchcliffe classifies the features of Ajax Desktops as

1. One Stop - Centralized online consumption of content and services
2. Accessible Anywhere - Roaming accessibility from anywhere with Web connectivity
3. All Your Data - Easy integration of most existing information sources including e-mail, calendars, bookmarks, news, blogs,pictures, etc.
4. Engaging, Fun, Fast - Rich, interactive experiences that match native software
5. A Platform that Grows And Evolves - Open platform for in-browser third-party software add-ons (Live.com’s Gadgets and Pageflakes’ Community Flakes)
6. Real Software Not Just Data - Increasing integration with Web 2.0 software applications like word processors, messaging, and wikis, plus rich Javascript widgets
7. Intelligent Consumption - Ad-hoc, decentralized, user guided content filtering and mashup creation.

Protopage,PageFlakes,Netvibes,Live are some of the more popular webtops available.Cosmopod,Goowy are also variations that are worth checking.

Java Comes up with a site called java desktop community to promote its GUI support.Sun Microsystems introduced the Java Web Start framework e in 2001. It provides the most essential feature for a Webtop.JNLP is the protocol Web Start uses for this purpose.Anyway,The concept of desktops has definitely evolved.Whether my computer will be running on a pure web based operating

system ..hmm..A probable development in the coming years.Maybe..As all speculations regarding the future ends,I too rely on Mr Time to tell me the future.I leave with some screenshots from desktoptwo.com