Show #227 | 4/9/2007
Dax Pandhi talks WPF and Expression

Graphics guru and WPF wonk Dax Pandhi shares his thoughts on WPF, WPF/e, Expression suite in general, and Blend in particular. You'll hear the story of how Dax came to be the "Pwop graphics guy" as well as his contributions to the WPF community.

Dax Pandhi is the CEO of Nukeation Studios, an award winning UX studio, he is also a very recent MVP, and one of the first people to say that WPF will rock the world! He and his company have been helping clients prepare for and adopt Windows Presentation Foundation for their applications since 2005. Dax is committed to bridging the gap between developers and designers in the new world of User Experience. He spends his time helping UX-impaired developers adopt WPF, writing about WPF, and trying to get a life. http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=227

...that one M. Andrew Eick of Farmington Hills, MI, USA is the most awesome guy on the planet. Even if his printer doesn't have any ink.

Thanks, man!

[Edit: Now if this isn't link love, nothing is! :)]

I've just been informed that I'm now officially a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for Client Application Development.

Thanks to Abhishek Kant at Microsoft for pushing me for it.

 

 

 

 

 

To recieve an autographed photo of me send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Ego Dept. @ Nukeation Studios. :)

I finally decided to go with flickr as my photographic gallery. I ended up loading hundreds of pictures today. My favorite is the "My Water" collection.

A couple of months ago, I was in Mumbai for IndiMIX and we were enduring a long taxi ride to the Microsoft office. I had my camera with me as usual and was snapping random pictures everywhere. At a stop light, I saw this very young kid standing next to a bus stop. He was barefoot and looked very poor and possibly homeless (which in Mumbai has a very vague meaning!). He was carrying around a discarded half litre soda bottle full of water.

I started taking photos of him purely on instinct (and because of his charming smile). He was so curious about something hanging from a small chain on one of the poles of the bus stop. He kept playing with his water, washing his head, and splashing water everywhere. He was very quite, didn't seem to be speaking at all. He would walk around and then come back to the thing on the chain and he was SO curious.

It was heartbreaking! And then he moved away from the pole and went to a shop with shoes lined up in the window. I just wanted to get out of the car and get him a pair of shoes. But to my shock he wasn't interested in the shoes. He just wanted to pour some water on the window sill and play some more.

At that moment I decided to get out of the car and just hand him some money. He was unsupervised so I hoped he could spend it on something he LIKED and not needed. But before I could do anything the traffic started moving and there wasn't anything I could do.

I went back through the same route the next day but I couldn't find the kid.

You can see the "My Water" set at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nukeation/sets/72157594424347659/ 

and my other collections at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nukeation/

 

From left to right:

Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft India; Tarun Gulati, MD of Microsoft India; Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corp.; Dax Pandhi (Me), CEO of Nukeation Studios.

This week has been amazing! I don't do much public speaking but the guys at Microsoft got me to be a speaker at IndiMIX'06. The central focus of the event was Expression and Live. Designer and developer. Cricket and Bollywood.

The event (my first big event) was fantastic. It started with a keynote from Steve Ballmer. Following that the application MatchCast, a high-end cricket statistic and analysis application, was showcased by Anil Kumble. Nukeation was the UX consultant on the application.

There was more stuff after that (from 1100 to 1300) but I missed it for two reasons. First, as the winner of Microsoft Blogstar, I had to go backstage and meet Steve himself!

>> This blog has been interrupted to announce that you are reading the blog of a Blogstar. We now return to the regularly scheduled post. <<

I got my photo taken with him, but they haven't sent it to me yet. :/ And secondly, after Steve left, my team had to prepare for our session.

The Designer Session Team

This was my first real, big speaking event and I was nervous as hell at first. The main reason I was able to give a good presentation was because of three incredibly cool people - Leon Brown, Pandurang Nayak, and Deepak Gulati. Our session was 75 minutes and covered the three Expression products. We also launched www.1expression.net (more on that later) and the WebRockstars contest at http://www.webrockstars.in/

I couldn't have asked for a better team! These guys are amazing. Thanks so much, guys! We spent two days in a conference room in Microsoft Mumbai preparing for our stuff. It was a first-of-it's-kind experience for me. Of course, the traditional "pizza while debugging" was a familiar entity.

Our session went excellently. It opened up with Leon (who was our session host) and cricket player Murali Kartik (a name Leon still probably can't pronounce - man, he got a lot of torture from me about that - and lots of other stuff!), followed by a walkthrough of Expression Web by Pandurang.

Pandu explains the session to Murali Kartik

I followed that with a brief intro of Expression Graphic Designer and Expression Interactive Designer. After that Deepak and I did a Developer-Designer workflow integration demo. He made a strict "developer looking" application (aka, functional but crappy looking) in Visual Studio 2005 with "Orcas" tools. I opened the solution in ExprID and enhanced it with styles and animations. We got a really great response from the audience. Deepak and I immediately developed this chemistry which allowed us to create a funny little style of working together on-stage. And I think the people really loved it.

We ended our session with three important things: an announcement that great things will be revealed about Expression in the first week of December; the launch of www.1expression.net; and a Q&A session. My fun moment there was representing my fellow designers worldwide - the most audible form of that was during the closing when someone asked "What are the debugging capabilities of Expression Interactive?". Deepak, Leon, and Pandu gave good, real answers. I, of course, said "Designers don't debug". :)

Mandira Bedi, TV personality and the host of the live webcast

I again missed the next session (Developer) as I was asked to be interviewed on the live webcast (75k viewers - made my knees shake!) by Mandira Bedi. I was able to catch Bob Muglia's closing remarks and Q&A. After the event, Leon and I also did a short interview for CNBC.

Bob Muglia answers a question. The four guys in the background are Deepak Gulati, Janakiram MSV, Kevin D'Souza, and Rohit Kapoor.

Praveen Srivatsa, Microsoft Regional Director for Bangalore, takes software construction seriously

 

Over the past 5 days, I got to meet some really great people - Microsfties, MVPs, RDs, simple civilianss, business execs, Cricket stars, movie stars, and who can forget Steve Ballmer! I also got to learn so many cool things that I can't tell without violating a dozen NDAs. That's the price you pay for being close to Microsoft.

All I can say is: hang on - the ride has just begun!

PS. Leon, yes, still MEKNB.

A good family friend and the editor of Rediff.com (India's biggest portal) wrote an article about me and Nukeation.com is now temporarily out of service due to the Slashdot Effect.

If you're interested in knowing about my boring history, you can read the article at http://shrinkster.com/jmo or http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2006/nov/01outsource.htm. The story is also on the front page at rediff.com.

If you don't already know, MIX'06 is coming to India in the form of IndiMIX'06 (http://www.indimix06.com). The keynote will be given by Steve Ballmer.

I've been given the honor of being on the same stage as Steve B. I'm going to be doing a piece on .NET Framework 3.0 - essentially about Windows Presentation Foundation and the Designer / Developer work process. I'll be co-presenting the demo with some really cool people.

IndiMIX'06 will be held at the National Center for Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point, Mumbai. It's a free public event and you can register for it at the official website. If you're not able to come to Mumbai, or if the event is sold out you can watch the live webcast. Register for either at the official site.

My presentation will be from 2:00pm to 3:15pm (local time, +5:30GMT).

For more info, visit http://www.indimix06.com

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to cover new territory near Solitude. The whole place is amazing! As I've mentioned a hundred times, we actually have GRASS this year! And a desert animal like me goes wild when he sees all this green!

Now the trek from Solitude to the new place I've dubbed Solace, is not quite that long. But it is a bit deeper into the hills, and these parts are known to have wolves and even a panther or two. I've seen both of 'em first hand (in another place) so I know the danger. Joining me for this little adventure was Nukeation's newest addition, Parvez Ansari. We were both armed. No, no. No firearms. Just your standard issue melee weapon (see Parvez try to attack me with it in a later photo).

Just look at this photo from the point where we started. Wouldn't that make you just want to go ahead and explore?!

We started at around 5pm. Just 20 minutes of walking later, I saw this cool roundish hill that I just HAD to climb. The surface was covered with small loose stones, hidden by the new grass. Parvez decided to stay back (afraid of heights, I believe) as I ventured forth. To boldly go where some men have gone before. That's my motto. So I climb easily halfway up the hill when I suddenly realized that the rest of the slope was practically unclimbable. The loose stones were dangerous. So then I decide to turn back only to notice that the climb down from the hill would be just as bad, if not worse. Too bad I had the camera, otherwise Parvez might've gotten some cool shots of me panicking.

Now as I'm trying to decide whether to go up, down, or sideways, I suddenly look down and find myself standing not more than 3 centimeters away from a SNAKEHOLE! It's actually a mouse hole. But you can often find snakes living inside them after having the previous resident for dinner. I threw my backpack to Parvez, and slowly began to climb back down. It's a wonder that I did not fall. I did manage to get this beautiful shot of Solitude as seen from this hill. It's a good thing I wasn't able to climb up the hill. The top, as we saw from the other side later, was filled with dry bushes that would definetely hold one or more snakes or other small creatures that might be harmful.

We decided to go around the hill and the nearby lake. Just take a look at all the grass covering the land!!! Woohoo!

We kept following the small creek (see the first photo above) as it had made a clean path through the rocks. I was a bit disappointed that there were no snakes around. But here's a resident of these parts. Isn't he a beauty?! (that one's for you Steve-o!) It's a dragonfly! I've seen this particular dragonfly and his mate (or her mate?) before, I think. The photos I took have the same wing and body patterns. I wonder how long they live.

As soon as we followed the creek path to its end, I saw this AMAZING rocky structure. I couldn't not climb it!! It was beautiful! See for yourself:

The rock was roughly 25 to 30 feet in height. Not making the same mistake again, I gave my camera to Parvez and climb this sucker. This one had loose stones on it as well (the whole damn place was covered in them, it seems), but this was pure rock not gravel, and I'm much more comfortable climbing those. Took me only a couple of minutes to climb it, and the view from atop was AMAZING! Too bad Parvez had the camera. Too bad we took only one camera!!! I have to go back there soon!

This rock, dubbed The Holy Mound of Solace (hey, I had climbed it, if that ain't holy, nothing is!) may seem easy to climb but I tell you there were sharp rocks jutting from bigger rocks, and the climb wasn't as easy as it seems. I nearly broke my leg. What I noticed AFTER I was on top was that this was a quake damaged rock. Half of it had fallen (behind the face you see here). And the whole thing was somewhat unstable. Look at this photo I took of the underside of the rock I was standing on.

A few inches of rock supporting the whole top of one side. Scary. Especially if you have been standing on it. That put a scary end to my rock surfing career you see here.

It was getting dark and we had a lot of ground to cover to get back to the car. But I definetely intend to visit this place again real soon. I plan to spend a whole day scouting out the area as well following the now almost empty river bed of a cool river where you can find crystals inside just about every rock! Check this out!

I'm not rock expert but this seems to be somewhere between a flintstone and a rubble ... I mean flintstone and granite. But its only semi-precious and has no real value.

Here are some other shots from the trip including a vulture that hovered over us a couple of times, Parvez getting tired of my antics (I knew I should've kept the short sword!), a cool spider I found under a rock in the river, the Eye of God we saw as we were leaving, and a strange manmade (?) rock formation we found near the lake.

This was one of my more fun adventures and I definetely intend to revisit this place. Like I said I'm gonna go spend a whole day in the hills and scout out all the paths.

An incident today reminded me of an email I wrote (exactly) one year ago. I was reading WinInfo Daily Update SHORT TAKES, and had the sudden inspiration to write a very non-characteristic anti-Microsoft funny story and sent to Paul Thurrott who reportedly "spit coffee all over his monitor". This is my only anti-Microsoft story ever, so I thought I might as well immortalize it in public.

To give you some background in case you don't remember that SHORT TAKES, here's the truncated version:

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WinInfo Daily Update Short Takes August 5, 2005

==== Short Takes Blog ====
   by Paul Thurrott

It's been quite a week. Thanks to the release of Windows Vista Beta 1 last week, I've been inundated with email messages, many of which I haven't been able to reply to yet. I'll keep trying. But summer is usually a slow time, and as I've mentioned before, my family tries to spend as much time as possible at the beach during July and August. I wonder how ridiculous I'd look sitting on the beach with a laptop.

I expected that my Vista Beta 1 coverage would generate a lot of activity--and it did--but one thing that really took me by surprise was the reaction to my "Boycott IE" comments in an otherwise pretty mundane article about Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 Web standards support. I told Microsoft's Gary Schare and Chris Wilson that I frequently don't think through the effects my words can have. I know that sounds disingenuous, but it's true. I honestly thought nothing of the article; I've been recommending Firefox over IE for years. My mistake. Apparently, I'm leading a crusade now. Note to self: Think, then write.

On a related note, on Tuesday a minor post on my personal blog, the Internet Nexus, brought Microsoft down on me like a lead hammer. This incident, too, was completely unexpected. I can't discuss the post per se, but I will discuss Microsoft's interaction with me during this event because it was so silly. After demanding that I remove the post, which appears on a free blog read by about 12 people, I was told that I had violated a nondisclosure agreement (NDA--I hadn't) and that the information I had posted--in all its vagueness--was a Microsoft trade secret. I was also told that various people at Microsoft were "very upset" with me, although none of them contacted me directly. And yes, they have my phone number. So... I'm not sure what all this means. But like I said, it was quite a week.

==== Short Takes ====
   An irreverent look at some of the week's other stories, by Paul Thurrott

Windows Vista Hasn't Slipped to Late 2006
   I love the media--and not because I have the dubious distinction of living within its outer fringes. This week, I saw several reports noting that the release of Windows Vista had slipped yet again, this time to late 2006. I'm particularly amazed at the lack of research that went into those reports. At the annual Microsoft Financial Analysts Meeting a week ago, Microsoft Senior Vice President Will Poole noted that Vista won't ship until holiday season 2006, which places the release in the October 2006 to December 2006 time frame--exactly when the company said the OS would ship the last time it publicly discussed the date. However, some people saw this announcement as a slip from the "second half of 2006" time frame the company has also mentioned. News
flash: Vista has been expected in late 2006 for quite a while now. This "news" isn't new.

Download IE 7.0
   Although Microsoft intended to ship Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0 Beta 1 only to private beta testers and Microsoft Developer Network
(MSDN) and TechNet subscribers, the browser began appearing on a variety of download sites this week, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop the downloads. So if you're really interested in getting IE 7.0 Beta 1, here's your chance. Just don't say I didn't warn you. The browser overwrites IE 6.0, is buggy, and has compatibility problems with certain plug-ins. Still interested? OK; go nuts.
   http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=10337:25693

First Windows Vista Virus Appears
   Just a week after Microsoft shipped Vista Beta 1 to the world, the fledgling OS has been blessed with its first virus. OK, maybe blessed isn't the right word. (Come on, Paul. Think, then write.) An Austrian hacker has released a virus that uses Vista Beta 1's new command shell (code-named Monad) and actually includes a tutorial about writing other Monad-based viruses. "Monad will be like Linux's BASH [shell]," the hacker noted. "We will be able to make as huge and complex scripts as we do in Linux." The virus is categorized as proof-of-concept only and doesn't do anything harmful. But it raises some interesting concerns.

---

WARNING: The content of this e-mail is purely fictional and intended for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblence to any person, organization, events, or other entities – living or dead – is purely coincidental.

---

Internal email from Microsoft Executive John Conner of the Inhuman Resources Division. Intercepted via temporal vortex created by the Microsoft Borg (formerly “Microsoft AntiSpyware”).

To: T-1000
CC: B. Gates
From: J. Conner
Subject: Termination Order
Importance: Urgent
Sensitivity: Medium
Sent: 2:39pm July 8, 2012

Our research division has shown that 87% users chose to uninstall the pre-installed version of Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista released last week. We did some extensive digging and have found that the root cause of this is a small “supposedly insignificant” article written by Paul Thurrott back in mid-2005 about boycotting IE. Our shares have dropped drastically because of this. Bill has personally asked for your “special touch” in this matter. He particularly praised your handling of that Netscape matter back around the turn of the millennium.

Your primary objective is: Terminate Paul Thurrott.

Direct termination is not an option. It is recommended that you travel back in time to August 2005, and instruct the SWAT Team (referred to as the Microsoft Legal Division back then) to start harassing Thurrott with petty matters at first. Get him all riled up. Facilitate a state of agitation. He will make mistakes. Our recon shows he is prone to writing before thinking. Take full advantage of that weakness. Once everyone starts dismissing him comments, and unsubscribes from his newsletter, you are authorized to enter the Thurrott residence and initiate termination protocols. Do not leave any evidence.

Secondary Objective: You are to self destruct after the primary objective is achieved. If possible, initiate self destruction inside the Mozilla foundation building.

Report to the Microsoft® Time® Machine® (formerly code name “Bull”) in Building 398 at 0700 hours tomorrow. I’ll see you off myself.

Thanks,

John

STANDING INSTRUCTIONS: Delete all e-mails regarding the Microsoft Inhuman Resources Division after reading them. Failure to do so will result in immediate termination.

Paul, don’t sit on your computer with your back to the window. If you see a red dot on your screen – duck! We are trying to salvage and send back an old T-800 model built to silently replace the former Californian Governor in 2004.

Good luck to all of us.

Tux

---

Now that I've blogged this, I'm going to go hide somewhere before Warner Bros, Arnie, Bill, Linus, or all of the above try to kill me. In case you are a lawyer for these parties, I didn't do it - I was in Cleveland that week!!

...that damn slave go?

Just missed him. What? No ... that's the title of his blog!

I should've blogged this days ago, but an accident (broken leg) had kept me away from the computer for some time.

Anyways, I would like to take credit (until I am served a notice) for pushing Andy to start his own blog, which was also *ahem* designed by yours truly. I seriously advise you to subscribe to his blog. Andy is kind of a guru to me (I don't call him Andy-Wan for nothing) and he will (supposedly) be posting pearls of wisdom on his blog soon.

http://blog.andyeick.com

And don't forget to check out the new gallery of cool photos (the GALLERY tab on top of the blog)!

Here’s something I always wanted to write about – one of my favorites places in the world! I have always been a nature nut (or as some say, a nut by nature) and I relish any chance to hop on over to Solitude. Now, yesterday at dawn, June 26th, I was kinda stressed out, NukeBall had to be delayed (for the last time) to July 24th, and needed a break. I had been working all night (all through the rain and ten gazillion power failures) and suddenly I noticed it was freakin’ red outside. It was dawn and I hadn’t noticed.

For a very arid desert-like area, you don’t get too much visibility as there’s always sand blowing about. But the rain had cleared the air, and the red and blue sky was amazing! Like I mentioned, I love going to Solitude. It’s a small mountain range about 6 miles from where I live (See map below). Officially, the place has no name. It’s triangular sedimentary rock formation, probably 3 times higher than the town (from sea level), and is a very quiet place, though I’m afraid “civilization” will overrun it in a few years. Sigh. I have been going there practically all my life. I named it Solitude (though it has been called other things as well). Would’ve planted a flag there, but the rocks are too solid.

Anyway, so I’m fighting those little bugs that come out after a good rain and at 70kmph on a 150cc bike on wet roads, you hate them! Soon enough I would find out how deadly these little critters are!!

Here is a shot taken at about 5:30am, and the second at 6:10am:

I rarely go to Solitude in the mornings. Mostly coz I sleep in the mornings. Nature nut that I am, I started chasing after all these birds and small animals I never get to see at any other time. The first was this cute little brown owl. Unfortunately, it was too skittish and the only shots I got were out of focus. For the few hours I was there afterwards, it kept teasing me by calling me out from the cliff floor, and even did a couple of flybys.

While I was trying to find the perfect cam setting in the rapidly changing light, I heard a weird noise behind me. I turned around to find a pair of Mongooses (or is it Mongeese?). Apparently, it was a mating pair and I had intruded. The male was big (easily 2 feet+) and was baring his teeth and growling. I remember doing something similar when someone last interrupted me, so I quickly got away. No pictures of them, unfortunately, but I did get a quick shot of their den.

As I was trying to leave the mongoose territory, a damned bug flew right in my face, and I almost swallowed it. And in that moment I panicked for second, sadly, and stepped onto an unstable ledge right on the edge of the cliff. The ledge broke, and this nature nut almost cracked! I fell about 4 feet, right on the knees, and missed falling off the cliff by hardly 6 or 8 inches. (Note to self: lose some weight). Parts of me are still aching. Nasty fall.

Of course, the day could only get better from there. The photo you see below is of the nesting grounds (or rather small caves) of various birds, including a few small brown owls, a few dozen parrots, and a few exotic looking birds I don’t know the English (or Scientific) names of. This is a very dangerous place. The rock is very brittle, just like the ledge I stepped on. If you fall from this place, you fall on some seriously sharp rocks and cactuses! Of course, there is a still bigger danger. Look at the huge (4”-12” wide) crack in the hill. It goes on for a few hundred meters. It was caused in the 2001 quake, and keeps getting bigger with every subsequent aftershock and now new quakes (4.7 on the Richter scale, 4 days ago). While the thing is solid and stable, you never know when it will suddenly fall off. The sharp rocks I mentioned are the remnants of the adjoining huge ledge that fell in the big quake.

The photo below is of a strange moth-like insect that often likes to hang around on these black rocks. These weird creatures make for great art study.

There is something strange about me (yes, yes, ONE of the things that’s strange about me) – I never really liked mammals. Give me cold blooded animals anytime! I love reptiles and amphibians. I had three pet tortoises growing up (they all live in the wilderness now). One of them was even named Raphael! So, as I moved closer to the avian nesting grounds, I saw this big (8”+) chameleon. Now, these are a different species (or rather sub-species) of the normal chameleon found in rainforests, tropics, etc. These chameleons are more adaptive to the dry area. Usually, these lizards are very shy and run off when you approach them. But this one was amazing. I was able to get within a couple of feet of it and it didn’t move. Heck, it even posed for the camera! Check out the perfect profile shot below. I sat next to it for almost 15 minutes and took many photos. After that it got tired and moved down the cliff wall. It was a great experience! I was "One with the Reptile".

It started getting cloudy after that, and I had to split before the rain started again (digital camera, y’know).

This place is a sanctuary for me. I came here first in 1989, and have been coming here almost 4 times a week since then. It can get dangerous at times. I’ve encountered several spitting cobras (one was a giant 12 foot, red toned cobra!!) that can spray their venom 10 feet away. And they're severely venemous. Wild dogs and wolves are often a problem if you go deep into the hills. But the most fearsome thing I’ve seen here was a panther cub back in 1997 or 98. It was probably adolescent. I was alone. My old SLR had just run out of film. Thankfully it was young enough to be scared of me as much as I was scared of it. I quickly got out of there, and have not ventured that far again. I was later told that a whole pack had moved into the mountain range and were even picking off cattle from a nearby village. Thankfully, haven’t seen them since.

It’s a great place. If you’re in the Bhuj area, just head up on Mundra Road, for about 9 kilometers. Just give me a holler and I’d be glad to show you around.

I know at least one guy who is itching to roam this place again! Right, Parvez?

Now this is a welcome sight! It rained here yesterday! To most people out there this is not a big deal, but when you live in a place where it rains about every 3 (or more) years, it's very important. When it rained a LOT in 2003 and the whole region was green, that was the first time I saw so much grass here in my whole life!

Anyways, this year seems promising. Another cool thing about the rain is that brings out all these insectoids that you usually don't see. For example, I spent 20 minutes chasing this fast little bug. As a student of both nature as well as art, it pays to study these little strange creatures. Just take a look at the beautiful carapace. It is METALLIC! Of course, when I got too close, it opened up from the behind and sprung two wings, came right in my face, sprayed me with what I believe to be insect pee or something, and flew away. But not before I got some cool shots of it!

In a week or two, I'm planning on going one-on-one with some big Crocs at a sanctuary not far from where I live. Now that will be something to remember. Need to get more memory for my cam.

June is going to be big for me. More than a few notable events are just around the corner.

The first being the renaming of my blog from Digital Exile to nAesthetic. I’m going to focus more on aesthetic than clowning around on my blog. A strong purpose in life (blogging life). You, in the RSS aggregator, hop on over to www.naesthetic.com (or the old www.nukeation.net). The blog looks hotter than ever!

The second will be the revamp of Nukeation Studios site for our 8th anniversary. The new site is expected to go live on the 9th of June.

The third, which is kind of unfortunate, is my 23rd birthday on June 17th. I find solace in the fact that while I may grow old, I refuse to grow up. And inversely, as a child prodigy, I have more than two decades of programming experience now. Ah, 128BASIC on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ in 1987. Those were the (crappy) days.

The fourth, and perhaps most important, will be the release of NukeBall – the first in a series of products we will be releasing! As soon as NukeBall is out the door, we can focus on the WinFX tools we have been prototyping!

Focusing on client projects and NukeBall has taken up most of my time. Now with NukeBall out of the door soon, and the new nukemeister Parvez joining the gang, I will finally have some time to resume my old blog projects.

First of all I will resume the Exploring WPF series of screencasts. Carl Franklin has given me some tips on how to make it better. Secondly, some of the free dev tools like Mapee and NukeControls and all that. I also need to give a major update to Nukeation Labs’ website. I have so much content just lying around.

As the name suggests, I will be focusing a LOT on aesthetics. The new UX revolution is gonna make aesthetics a LOT more important that they have ever been.

It's a nice evening. The sun is setting, Jeremy Soule's "Glory of Cyrodiil" is playing in the background, and I'm just plain damned excited about the positive turn this year is finally taking.

Too many things have gone not-quite-right this year, but the tide has finally turned! NukeBall is now in Beta and very soon shall be released in all its glory. We have a few more juicy products in the works. I finally got that seed out of my teeth!!! Oh, and of course, a new "Dark Lord" is joining Nukeation in about a month or so!

Parvez Ansari has been a good friend for many years. We always dreamt of working together some day. Well, it's some day now! Parvez moved away a couple of years ago when he became something or the other at CARE (I don't remember the exact title he bore, but he was like 2 inches short of being God at the IT dept in Care). Anyways, he has decided to leave his current divine job and take up the role of being my second-in-command at Nukeation Studios. Imagine that! He either truly loves Nukeation or is totally insane! Either way he's just what we need.

Parvez is a Microsoft Certified Professional, and is an expert when it comes to technology of just about any kind. He has also served as an instructor at a major national technology institute. Now he will be taking up many of my responsibilities as I move on to focus a bit more on WinFX services as well as some of the retail products we are cooking up. You can expect the creative level at Nukeation to go way up as soon as he joins!

At Nukeation, Parvez will be in-charge of planning and executing projects for our clients as well as supervising certain areas of our retail software development. While I will still take part in most of our work, Parvez will be taking over many of my previous responsibilities as I mentioned. This is very cool since I will get to do more graphics, planning, and marketing than coding. I will also be focusing more on our "n" line of products that start with NukeBall (releasing on 27th June).

We will also unveil a special online service in August/September, targetted specifically for Indian literary institutes. Parvez will be spearheading that project (Codenamed "Timberwolf").

I can't wait for him to join. I need a vacation!

The sun has set completely and the mosquitos are now attracted to my Tablet's light, time to head in.

This is a small lizard which has taken to hanging around my window at nights. As the only (big) source of light at night in my neighbourhood, the bugs stalking my window feed Grog (that's what I've named him). Dogs may creep me out, but I like reptiles for some reason.

Now this is quite ironic. A mosquito, found up the hole of an electric mosquito repellent device. The device manufacturer is safe tho, since this guy died there.

Yes, as you can guess one becomes weird when working late nights.

For someone who has been certified an incurable obsessive compulsive site revamper, it took me almost a year to update www.digitalexile.net (my art and photography gallery). I had a cool Flash interface ready near the end of last year, but gathering and organizing and sorting my photographs (which I shoot by the dozen every day) and going through all the old paintings was too time consuming.

I was finally able to update the Flash interface with a new theme and add some other cool stuff (like the slide-menu). You can check out the result at http://www.digitalexile.net

Note: I went overboard with the graphics here. A 1024x768 display running on a 32MB AGP is the bare minimum for this baby. I recommend at least 1280x1024 running on a 64MB or 128MB AGP/PCI-E.

We had a 5.5 quake here last night at 11:30. Lasted more than half a minute and came in 3 distinct tremors. This was not like one of those aftershocks. I was actualling rocking back and forth while running down the stairs and out of the house. The house got a few new cracks - superficial thankfully. No damage anywhere has been reported so far and no one has been hurt.

One of my oldest friends, Nikolai, who was at college a few hundred miles away during the first quake in 2001, called me. This was the first "real" quake he had experienced after he moved back here in 2002. He actually had half a mind (like many others) to sleep outside.

I doubt anybody got much sleep last night. There was another tremor at 2am again. A 4.2 tremor was also recorded yesterday evening, about 7 hours before the big one at late night.

After over almost a hundred tremors of various magnitudes, none has unsettled me as much as the one last night. Nasty stuff. I don't know about moving anywhere else, but I sure hope to get the Nukeation office from the 2nd floor to a ground floor office soon!

Heh, I loved that taunt from SACRIFICE (a 2001 RTS from Shiny Entertainment). But this Oblivion is of a different kind.

I've managed to order the Collectors Edition of THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION from Take2's official store, and managed to have it shipped outside the US (which was supposedly not possible for the Collector's Edition). My online check just revealed that the package reached Mumbai, India today and was shipped from there at 7pm local time. At most, and barring any unforeseen circustances Akatosh forbid, the package should reach me within the next 24 hours. It's already been delayed many hours because of "adverse weather conditions" in the US.

The irony of the whole situation is that after spending $70 for just shipping on a $55 game, and even (probably) recieving it soon, I won't be able to play the game for a few days. I'm SO swamped with work that I need to keep two alarm, one to wake up, and one to tell me when it's time to go to bed. Sigh. I'm moving to Mars. I wonder if I can borrow Calvin's wagon.

After more than 40 years of work, my father, Mahim Pandhi, has finally retired today on his 60th birthday. He has been the editor of Kutchmitra, the premiere newspaper of Kutch long before I was born. Happy birthday, dad!

This was taken last night. Roughly 23 hours after the earthquake. What little damage the tremors did to the electrical distribution infrastructure, the storm multiplied it by 10. We just got proper power back. We had 3 blown fuses and a severely damaged cellphone charger.

Tornado (will blog on that later, suffice to say it preceded the quake by 2 days), earthquake, thunder, what's next? Tsunami in the desert? A rain of frogs?

Can you imagine how you sound to your clients to whom you email to apologize for what may seem to them like a lousy excuse - "uh, we had an earthquake, and then a thunderstorm knocked out our power lines."

Btw, later reports state structural damages to several hundred buildings - tho nothing severe. The epicenter was the same place as the previous quake. Just remembering that place makes me shudder. It's near Chobari. I went there in 2001. A (approx.) 200 sq ft wide igneous rock was split into two with a 2 feet wide crack in the middle.

I wonder if I should move to someplace safer. Maybe the north pole.

What can I say? It's been hell. Both good and bad.

Still not at the best of health, but will pull through. Nukeation is finally undergoing a major change that will split the company into three divisions. I will still reside over all three as undisputed God, but other people are also being brought in. My primary goal from today will be the retail products we've mentioned at Nukeation Labs. And above everything will be NukeBall. The three divisions btw, will be: Professional Services (graphics/web design, etc), Retail (NukeBall, PixelSpread, etc) and ... uhh, the third is a secret for the moment. Let's just say it deals with culture at a high level.

Nukeation has also undertaken 2 top secret projects under special circumstances even though we are no longer accepting new projects at the mo. The first project will probably mean nothing to 99% of the readers here, but the other 1% (and about 2.7 million other people) will be very excited about it when we finally reveal it. This project is directly linked to the new secret division mentioned above. The other 99% will surely enjoy top secret project #2. Here's a hint ... uhh, the suits just came into my office ... will talk more about it later when I don't have a gun pointed at my special place ... my brain, you dolt! My brain. Sheeesh. Kids these days.

Copyright © 2005-2006 Nukeation Studios. All rights reserved.

Here's a look at the new work-in-progress box of NukeBall. We're rethinking the branding while some of the last features are being coded. We seriously need to get the site updated soon too! Now that we're soon be completing all pending projects and won't take new ones, I will finally have some time to do that! Love to hear any comments on the box tho.

I also need to see if I can find some time to write those WPF articles/blog posts that I have been threatening about for so long.

Sigh. I wish a day had more hours! And that reminds me (don't ask how) that I need to post a link to www.andyeick.com - go check it out! It's still in Beta mode. Andy's a client-turned-friend and a terrific photographer. Go check out his site (which I *ahem* helped design, thankyouverymuch) and especially his photos! He has about a million and half ideas for his site, but -847139 hours to implement them in. But check it out nonetheless, the real juice IMO - his photo gallery - is already there. Do notice how he delicately and artistically treats even a seemingly "everyday" pic. Oh, and if you dare to venture into his site's Professional section, do so in a sitting fashion. His resume still knocks me to the ground.

I also need to post some opinionated opinions about Isaac Asimov. I read Asimov for the first time. Shocking. I know. I have just under 60 pages left in "The Edge of Tomorrow". My main reason for buying it was because it has a painting by Boris Vallejo on the cover, and because Asimov wrote the introduction to a book about Boris Vallejo. I've learned a lot about paintings from Boris' works! But can't write about all this yet. Need to finish the book first. And get all the remaining work out of the way too!!

Oh, and btw, I'm downloading Windows Vista Build 5308 32-bit. ~13 hours left. You know the drill.

The last couple of days I was sick. I was miserable. But this morning, I felt a lot better, and felt even better when the FedEx guy delivered two large packages. Excited out of my mind (and also tired of not being able to blog anything for many days) I finally lugged my new tripod, camera, and the kriffin' awesome Vader lightsaber (Force FX) to my roof at 2:30am (its 3:30am now) and took some shots and a couple of videos. Most of 'em turned out bad (I'm still sick I guess) so will take new ones over the weekend and post then. For now, these will have to do:

The Vader saber was surprisingly larger than I expected. It's true the Force FX is not a 100% exact replica - it was slightly enlarged to fit all the electronics. The hilt is also surprisingly solid metal (looks like chrome coated plastic from afar) and heavy (I'd say about 600g or so, not sure). You need to hold the lightsaber with both hands unless your hands are as big as David Prowse'. As soon as I put in 3 AA batteries and switched on the activator stud I was pleasently greeted by a menacing snap-hiss and then idle humming that suddenly brought back memories of watching old Ben Kenobi face Vader on the Death Star. As soon as I twisted my wrist, the (supposedly) gyroscopic motion sensors fired up and the bottom mounted speakers played very accurate lightsaber motion sounds (whrrooom, vrrrrrmmm), and when you hit the blade (tho not too hard) on something it plays a clash sound like hitting another lightsaber!!

The blade glows a bright red visible even in full sunlight! At night its a horrifying scene (to the person watching). An hour ago I scared the stuffings out of the watchman passing by my house. Looking how he hurried his pace, I almost wanted to go down and start chasing him - lightsaber blazing! I didn't. I plan to do it tomorrow when I have more strength.

Lastly, notice the fine finish (ignore my fingerprints) on the hilt. The pattern in the bottom corner is the black nozzle on top from where the blade comes out. It's just how it looks in the movies! The construction is excellent and sturdy.

The second package has the .45 (45%) scaled down model of Darth Tyranus (Count Dooku) replica lightsaber. This is EXACTLY scaled. 100% of what was in the movie (just half the size). It's usually about $35, but I got it free with my FX saber. I intend to order ALL the .45 ones ... not yet. Food first. Sabers second. Food first. Sabers second. Sigh.

As I look at the curved lightsaber, I have half a mind to order two full-scale replicas and see if I can modify my motorbike's handlebars with this. Hmmm. The blade gaurd at the tip of the saber is just so cool.

The detailing is fantastic. Simple excellent craftsmanship. The certificate that came with this said this is a hand crafted model. And this 4"-5" model is also surprisingly heavy. 100g at least. It has a great feel when you hold it - even if its .45 sized.

The rubber grips around the hilt are also very nice. This lightsaber is a lot more comfortable than the Vader saber. The Vader saber has large vertical hard rubber strips that serve as a cleaving grip. Seriously - it bites into your flesh if you hold it too tight! After 3 hours of playing around with the saber, I finally found a comfortable grip. Also, the Dooku saber has a metal "spine" in the under curve that can be uncomfortable if held improperly. You must remember, these were Dark Lords of the Sith. They CHOSE pain. Frustration can fuel their rage.

Oh hey ... I hear the neighborhood watchman making his rounds again. BRB

So I'm gonna need to wait a week or so more for my sabers to get here. Here's the stuff I'm doing in the meantime:

• Playing Jedi Academy once in a while to get the feel of the lightsaber and some pretty hot moves.
• Buying replacements for the stuff I broke in my house while practicing the aforementioned moves.
• Using a thick whiteboard marker as a lightsaber hilt and practicing thrusts and parries.
• Apologizing to my colleague whom I drew red marker stripes on while practicing. Note to self: buy him a new shirt.
• Using a broom as a double-bladed lightsaber and practicing the moves.
• Thanking the Force for helping me not break anything this time.
• Building a special display case in my home office for the lightsaber.
• Thinking of starting a collection of different replices (including replica Katana blades and other types of swords).
• Might even take up fencing lessons if I can make the time.
• Practicing chopping of Dooku's head (using cabbage).
• Practicing kneeling in front of (imagined) Emperor Palpatine.
• Practicing killing people with a Force grip. (tho I'm still not able to call the TV remote from afar - now that's a Force power we all could use. That and using Force Sense to find the car keys)
• Wearing more black clothes (I already used to do that, so no biggie - being a graphic designer rocks)
• Trying to explain to men in white coats that I am mentally stable (note to self: get a certificate from the psychiatrist)
• Practicing being redeemed by my son near the end (note to self: get a son) (note to self: find a woman insanse enough)
• Playing more Jedi Academy.

Don't worry. I won't post photos of myself dressed in black, brandishing a red lightsaber. Well, not more than one or two, at least.

I love the people at MasteReplicas.com. They gave me FREE international shipping (usually costs like $40 to $80 for things like these!) and now instead of the usual month or two I need to wait for a package from the States to get to India, they are estimating a delivery in the next 11 days!!

I can't wait wrap my hand around that cool polished hilt of Vader's lightsaber. Red blade blazing. Jedi fearing from it. Muuhaahahaha. I'm drooling already. Oh damn, need to clean the keyboard now.

Yup. I did it. I just ordered me a Force FX vader lightsaber and a scaled replica of the Dooku's saber.

The Vader Lightsaber (on top, for the ignorant types - seriously, how could you not know the Dark Lord's blade?) has a red blade. Now all I need is one of those Vader masks to transmogrify my voice, and then a black cape. I will haunt the streets at night, waving a red lightsaber and scaring the stuffings out of the public!

Okay, so I'll just eagerly show it to friends and display it proudly in my office (along with the 80s authentic Snow Speeder model, the Delta-38 helmet I'm gonna make soon, and my almost half dozen Golden Web Awards ).

So, the statistics are:

~185 novels

~219 comics

~15 games

~2 lightsabers

~0 costumes (can't join the 501st yet, but that's a topic for another blog post)

Does this make me a freak? Hmmm. Be careful of your answer. Say the wrong thing and you just might have a red lightsaber'd phantom menace on your ass!! I may not control the Force, but I can sure kick your behind with an aluminum lightsaber!

The expensive replicas are next, but a bit farther into the future. My psychiatrist has suggested I start spending my money on food and clothes. Oh well.

Talking to a C# fan(atic) on MSN, I just realized something... I have been using BASIC in one form or the other since 1987 - NINETEEN YEARS! I'm kriffin' OLD! OMG!

I started with a British machine called Sinclair ZXSpectrum with 48kb of RAM, then ZXSpectrum+ 128(kb)RAM. I remember coding silly little programs in 128BASIC where you make a small 8x8 pixel "spider" and it drops from the top of the screen to the "floor" and creeps away to the right. Oh man! That brings back memories. I used VB 1 through 3, but not that seriously. I started into the Visual world seriously with VB4, professionally with VB5 and onwards.

So I guess this makes me a (V)B Veteran. Okay, the next person to say "dude, use C#" is gonna get slugged.

About 4 hours ago someone came to the blog with the following search on Google:

"images of cool dax" ... and apparently I have high listings in Google!

Over a quick dinner, I was going through the blog's logs (hey, that rhymes!) and here are the top 3 topics (not exact search strings) people google and stumble on my blog:

3: Star Wars / Philosophy about the Force

2: Avalon / WPF / WPF-E / WPF e-applications / WinFX

1: Republic Commando / Delta-38 & 07 & 40 & 62 / Vode An / Shadow Warriors / Fierfek (fyi, that's the Star Wars equivalent to the F word) / and the like

This apparently this would lead one to believe I'm more interested in the Deltas, Mando'a, and Katarn Armor than WPF. Don't let it fool you! WPF and the Deltas have an equal place in my heart. Unless Microsoft adds a knuckle-sheathed vibroblade - then WPF takes the #1 spot!! :D

Too much stress + too much Star Wars + (pre-existing) psychotic behaviour = dangerous.

Why? (Like you need to ask!)

Settling into my new PC ... well, half re-built old PC ... I decided to do something I haven't done since Windows 95 - name my hard drives. Now, can you guess what I named the four partitions?

Boss (C:) - Primary Drive / Windows / Programs / Websites

Scorch (D:) - Work files / graphics / animations / XAML / MSFT stuff

Sev (F:) - Windows Vista / WinFX

Fixer (G:) - Media files / downloads / Channel 9 / DNR / DNRTV / MONDAYS / etc.

And yes, I still play Republic Commando for an hour before going to bed. And yes, I have no personal life at the moment. And yes, I still am crazy about Republic Commando. And yes, of course I've earned the wrath of the unnamed someone who I was supposed to mention being crazy about (instead of a game...well, a beautifully made, exceptionally executed game - which is of Star Wars EU nonetheless!!). And yes, now I need that Katarn armor more than ever.

In the words of Scorch: "Need...bacta...now!"

For the past few days, I have been battling a mega-crisis on my main production PC. I still don't know the cause, but at the end, my beautiful 80GB SATA harddrive will be sent for replacement by Seagate. I bought a new 200GB one, transferred all the data without problem (for a change) and am now reinstalling everything to get back to work-ready status.

While I was off staring at a blank blue chkdsk screen for 12 hours in a row, two companies on which my livelihood depends on - Microsoft and Corel - pulled a fast one on me. Microsoft released Expression Interactive Designer (EID or MEID or "Sparkle"). If you don't know, Sparkle will be the heart of WPF based applications.

First of all, I must congratulate Microsoft for pulling off one hell of a job on this app! It seriously kicks Flash's ass. And its 6.8MB if you can believe it. Yup. Amazing!! The completely non-Microsoft-like UI (Black!!!) looks so sweet! The different work panels are a cross between Flash and Visual Studio - very cool.

I have a lot of work pending due to the hardware problems and all, but I will surely post a bigger review (from a dev and designer pov) over the weekend.

Corel Graphics Suite X3 (v13) is downloading as I write this. I blindly bought the upgrade, of course. PhotoPaint is a million times better than Photoshop. At least for me. I create all my websites in it. I can't wait to see what they've put in this release!! Again, more on that this weekend.

Lastly, this blog seems too confining to share snippets of code and .net (and xaml) stuff I want to give away freely. Some of my cohorts at Nukeation agree. So we're starting up (or rather, RE-starting) NUKEATION LABS. It will be 100% free, 100% managed, and on a seperate domain, of course. I'm almost finished with Nukeation Mapee 1.0, nukeControls 1.0, and more. All will be put up for public download very soon. The site will be up by the end of the week. The url is yet to be decided.

I took a two day break from work. Was severely exhausted. I was able to finish my immediate reading list which includes the first two trilogies of DragonLance. Now I wait for that package to arrive that will have the third trilogy.

Tomorrow, I start reading the remaining two books of the Dark Nest trilogy by Troy Denning - namely, Unseen Queen, and The Swarm War. Denning is becoming one of my all time fave Star Wars writers - right up there with (in no particular order) Tim Zahn, Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Matt Stover, and Karen Traviss.

Sigh. I'm addicted. I read over 2000 pages in 1 week (while working!).

I may have mentioned (more than once) that Devs are NOT giving attention to WPF. Well, turns out I was not talking to a large enough number of devs to get a proper statistic.

I finally got to talk to devs who are seriously focused on WPF and are just as excited as I am.

Of course, that does not negate the fact the majority of devs out there don't really care that much. But that again is not their fault. What the designer (Manuel, was it?) said in the Sparkle preview on Channel9, you have to clear your mind of the preconceptions of 3D and timelines and all.

Here's what I plan to read this month and possibly into the next:

DragonLance

~ Chronicles Trilogy

(read) Dragons of Autumn Twilight

(reading) Dragons of Winter Night

Dragons of Spring Dawning

~ Legends Trilogy

Time of the Twins

War of the Twins

Test of the Twins

~ War of Souls Trilogy

Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Dragons of a Lost Star

Dragons of a Vanished Moon

Star Wars

Path to Truth

Dangerous Games

The Master of Disguise

The School of Fear

The Shadow Trap

~

The Fight to Survive

Legacy of the Jedi

Secrets of the Jedi

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

~

The Unseen Queen

------------------------------------

A rare occurance here is that I've put off reading the Star Wars books (and not just books I'm re-reading, these are NEW BOOKS!) until I've read the Chronicles, Legends, and War of Souls books. And the 2/3 of these I've already read! I just can't get enough of Raistlin!! :D

After 6 months and 10 days of slaving over 23 designs (will post the process here later) Nukeation.com has finally been updated. This is version 19 (if you count the officially published versions) based on the layout codenamed "REGENERATE".

HanselMinutes, dnrTV and the other new shows are not yet in the portfolio. They will be added as soon as the sites go live.

Please feel free to visit www.nukeation.com and check out our new services including: Blog Design, WinFX/WPF consulting, Multimedia Services, and more. We've also added a PROCESS page where we show you how projects are done and what it is like working with us.

Feel free to mail (or comment here) any comments, questions, suggestions, or critisizms.

This week is gonna be great. We have so many sites being launched in this week and possibly the next as well. Here's a partial list:

.NET Rocks - version 3 (2nd version after Pwop hired Nukeation)

Franklins.net - Carl Franklin's training company and the creator/sponsor of DNR

dnrTV (premiere show is with Miguel Castro about WebControls)

HanselMinutes (too "large" to explain, just wait and see)

Mondays - version 3 (same as DNR)

ThatIndigoGirl - Michele Leroux Bustamante's new blog about Windows Communication Foundation - a sister site to www.DasBlonde.net

MattStawicki.com (may be delayed to next week or so)

DigitalExile.net - I finally get to update my painting and photo galleries.

And last but not least, NUKEATION.com - yes, the big update I've been threatening to upload!

I leave you with some marketing (but still true) text in relation to tomorrow's update:

Our marketing is centered on our big milestone - the 78 billion pixels. Here's some extra info to awe you into giving us a new project or two...

Calculating at 96dpi, the average resolution of a monitor - 78,000,000,000 pixels (rounded off for convenience) equals 67,708,333.33 feet (excluding socks) which equals to 20,637.49 kilometers - which is MORE than THREE TIMES THE RADIUS OF THE EARTH! FYI, that's 19,134.405km at the equator according to Wikipedia. The base calculation is of a "strip" that has 96 pixels in one inch of.

Being responsible for a big (79%) piece of that pixel pie, I am suddenly feeling tired looking at those numbers. Excuse me, I need a nap.

PS. Big shout out to Jessica Pletcher. She may not have her own website for me to link to :P but she is responsible for almost 12% of these pixels!

Working day and night (almost literally) I have come to realize that Earth has very few hours in a day. The noise people make around my house when I sleep during the day is an extra nuisance. I mean, I don't yell "C'mon, kids get ready for school" 20 minutes after they go to bed.

Working on a new blog layout, a new version of www.DigitalExile.net, a new version of Nukeation.com that I've been threatening to upload since August, and what not. Of course, top priority goes to my clients and especially Carl's new shows releasing during the next week.

NukeBall is now at a stand-still until we get all this done. It's not something I can leave completely to subordinates (sorry, guys, but you know its true). Thankfully, a couple of nice people have agreed to use a pre-beta of NukeBall and help me out with testing and usability. We're NOT going to release this software until we make sure you're going to get a product which is worth at least twice as much for each cent you pay for it!

So if I can only think of a way to create a good living environment on Mars, and avoid the little green men while at it, and find a good renewable fuel source so I can come back to Earth for meetings every once in a while, I will definetely move to Mars.

The "Dark Vista" blog theme I made is giving me too many headaches. I'm switching back to "Regenerate" until I can properly make a new theme (all white, I'm giving a up black...*sniff*... for the moment).

Do note that the "my.Statistics" on the right are completely old. For those of you who care (really?!) here's the latest:

Listening: EvilDoers, Lord of the Rings OST, John Williams and the Skywalker Symphony special edition disc, or Franklin Brothers (and a couple of songs by Rory Blyth). Depends on what I'm doing. Instrumental soundtracks are best while making designs or doing heavy code. Rory's ode to Chris Sells works ten times better than black coffee.

Writing: NukeBall Helpfile, that's it

Reading: Ava...uhh WPF reference in MSDN ... and hating every second of it

Playing: Was playing Knights of the Old Republic for a while, but completing the game 6 times in a row can make it lose it's magic ... will revert to Republic Commando this weekend if I get time from work

Coding: DNR Family of websites, a few blogs (except my own), three client software projects, nukeation.com revamp, NukeBall, Nukeation PixelSpread(tm), Nukeation XCOPY(tm), and NukeControls.

Dax != Sleeping == true; .... I know, no wonder I get lost in C#

Awaiting: Republic Commando 2, KOTOR3, TES IV: Oblivion, Windows Vista, Half-Life 3, WPF and CIDER's next build, and breakfast. It's 6am and I need to get some sleep!!!

If you don't know, DragonLance is a part of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It exists as RPG but my interest in it has been for two different reasons: the first is, or rather are, the books written by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman set in this fantastical world. If you like Lord of the Rings you would like this. It's a bit more "hands-on" than LOTR, and you get to see more "magic".

There are many books and I've lost touch with it. But the main essence is built on three trilogies. The first trilogy, The Chronicles, is about the "Return of the Gods". The second triogy, Legends, is about two main characters from the first trilogy - the Majere Twins.

The third trilogy, The War of Souls is something I have not read. I was looking for some stuff on Rediff Shopping and stumbled on a gift set of th War of Souls trilogy - all three books (NOT trade paperback) for just $15! I ordered it immediately and hope to recieve it within the next few days. After 200+ comics and 130+ novels of Star Wars, I think a short break would do me good. I already read a good book called BLEACHERS by John Grisham.

I mentioned two reasons for liking DragonLance. The second is Matt Stawicki. The first two trilogies are about a couple of decades old. The old artwork for the books was terrible to say the least. In the 90s the Wizards of the Coast, publisher of DragonLance, hired this amazing artist to redo the covers of the old books and a lot of artwork for the new books as well as trading cards and stuff I don't know about. In 2001, I had the honor of doing Matt's website. I'm a big fan of his. I have five of his autographed paintings on my office wall. In the next few weeks I'll be updating Matt's website with all new artwork. Be sure to check out his work at http://www.mattstawicki.com. One painting in particular is my (and coincidentally Matt's) favorite - Time of the Twins. I'll post a hi-res photo of this painting later.

The War of Souls features his artwork too, of course. And I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Yes, I know. This new "look" is not all I thought it would be. It's a pain to read online as some have mentioned, and I messed up some CSS so the admin pages are pretty messed up.

I intend to clean it up with a nice non-black look over the weekend if I have time. I have a dozen sites to do including the new family of DNR/Pwop shows, not to mention get my own business site up with all the new services we have announced and an updated portfolio.

I just might have to forget about sleeping this year as well. Now I know how Santa Claus feels the next morning! Where's that bourbon?

It's 2006 in India. So if you're in another (late) timezone, this is a message from the future - HAPPY NEW YEAR! Tomorrow's a Sunday. Get drunk. Get a royal hangover.

I'm a VB guy. BASIC runs in my veins. I was programming in BASIC on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ when I was 4. But suddenly, I find myself trapped in a world of C#!

The project was a highly customized blog running the dasBlog engine for Michele Leroux Bustamante. The problem is that dasBlog is all in C# (1.1/2003!). I have done very little work in C#. And now I know why.

Just getting a simple data editing webform to work is like battling a Krayt Dragon while being blindfolded! I did manage to finish the work, but it was painful! Now I'm led to believe that one of the following is the case:

• Visual Basic users are spoilt and can't live without autocomplete and automatic code formatting
• C# is terribly unproductive
• I was drunk and I didn't know it (quite possible) or as they say in C# [quite possible]
• C# just plain sucks, while VB just plain rocks
• VB just plain ROCKS, while C# just plain sucks
• I had a terrible dream, like the one where I'm being chased by angry country singers
• {your opinion here}
• {your other opinion here}
• or as a C#'er told me, "try C++, then you will see how easy C# is"

'Nuff said.

... when Dad starts imitating the Grinch ... or maybe its a natural pose. :-P

My blog has always been reflective of nukeation.com, and nukeation.com has always been reflective of my current "mood". With Vista and Aero and Avalon taking up most of my mental bandwidth, I crafted Digital Exile to look like the upcoming Nukeation.com "skin" which is reflective of Vista and the new "glass" stuff I've been experimenting with.

I also wanted to remove the clutter of the previous design. I finally added a slideshow in this upgrade. It's Flash based, and runs on XML, so I'll be updating it often.

Another addition is the ANNOUNCEMENTS panel where upcoming projects in which I'm involved are listed (and linked, if possible).

As always, please feel free to send comments about how you love or hate the new design.

Or just plain go see a psychiatrist?

Today, I desiged the 234th design of Nukeation.com. Yes, 2-3-4! While we have published only 14 or 15 (I lost count) versions, I have created (and scrapped) so many other designs. No one from my team is allowed to touch the nukeation website without my supervision, and I always make the site myself.

Are these early signs of OCD? Maybe. Should I be proud that I've made over 200 designs in roughly 400 days in total? Or should I check in to the nearest psychiatric clinic?

Sigh. Well, in any case, Nukeation Studios is updating all of its network sites this 23rd - including nukeation.com and nukeball.com. Perhaps digitalExile.net too (the 3 people who see the site will be very happy).

I might even start documenting how I make these websites - might be fun to let others into the depths of my weird imagination and totally bleak mind.

It's that time of the year again. Last year I started doing websites for Carl Franklin. Carl and I worked together to create a cool componentized website which sort of became an engine that was reused on many different websites including Mondays, the upcoming 64-bit Question, and many others.

Nukeation is currently working on revamping all the existing sites and upgrading to ASP.net 2.0 as well creating some brand new ones. See Carl's blog for more info.

The new year will be .netalicious! I for one can't wait to see PwopCatcher in action.

There comes a time in every true geek's life when work takes over your mind. Something like that happened to me last night.

I was working inside a DirectX based application that prevented me from seeing the Windows taskbar. I never keep a clock in my personal office, I don't keep my cellphone on at most times, and I don't wear a watch. But I needed to see the time every 10 minutes so I didn't forget an important webcast I was supposed to participate in, and I was loathing the large timespans needed to task-switch between DirectX mode and normal Windows. At that point, a stray thought entered my mind... "What if you could make a small digital device that runs on batteries and shows you the time".

I stopped breathing for four seconds. Then I switched off my DirectX app, reenabled the net connection and went online to search for a good psychiatrist.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cons- uhh, I mean ... ever wonder where that latin blurb people use comes from? You're probably smarter than me so you already know. Well, I went looking and found all sorts of neat info, as well as a "Lorem Ipsum" generator at http://www.lipsum.com. Check it out. Cool site!

Okay, so I've gone far, but not far enough. This is gonna take me far enough. What you ask? A conversation with my best friend, Parvez, on MSN right now has convinced me that I should do this.

<drumroll>

I'm restarting the work on the long lost thesis on The Force. I started writing this a few years back. Now I intend to finish and publish it. I might even put it up for consideration for a literary or philosophical degree at some university even - not sure about that tho. But it will happen.

More to come on The Force: a thesis.

I tell my client that I mentioned him in a blog post (see Designer vs Developer post) and he writes me back saying:

I did see that and thought it was me!   --- out of all my witty and insightful comments/questions that's the question that get's me a blog post???

So, here I am trying to find one of those "witty and insightful comments/questions" to blog. Can't have good clients pissed at you, right? Right.

But the only problem is... I just went through like 20-30 emails ... and ...uhmm... can't seem to find the content with the specified criteria.

Seriously tho, I'd like to give a shout out to Andrew Eick - the cool dude who introduced me to SlideshowPro (which you will see in many of my upcoming sites) and told me that VS2005 was available for download on MSDN. He's also a very talented photographer. I will post a link to his site as soon as he updates it with the version I helped design.

Yes, I am now finally moving a faster pace. I got 512k DSL! For most of you out there, it may not be a big deal, but I spent slaving over a 115k modem for the past few years, so I am happy.

I've been wanting to make my own hand-crafted lightsaber for a long time. That time is coming near. After successfully defeating Tavion and the spirit of Marka Ragnos on Korriban, I think I am finally ready for my own ligthsaber. This blue-bladed "adept" lightsaber will complete my training as a Knight.

All I need now is a Sith lord to chop up!

The idiot is back on the blog-wagon!

Not exactly dying (sorry) but I sure feel like it. I have some severe problems in my mouth (too gross to write about) and the only way to solve it (according to the doc) is not to talk much - or preferebly not talk at all. While I feel miserable about it (not to mention the pain, oh the pain!) people are very happy that I'm not talking. Sure, I do tend to cause trouble with my words, but it's all in good natured humor. Is it my fault they don't have any of it? Am I sounding like Rory Blyth now? Well, I don't mind sounding like him, but being sick like him is a problem for me. Of course, from one point of view I am already sick like him.

In any case, I have less than 2MB [1.2 to be exact] of Vista CTP to download. This will provide some relief.

Oh, and for anyone reading this who has kissed me before and would want to in the future (really?! thanks!!) don't worry, my oral condition will be all cool in a few days. I also go back to work tomorrow.

Well, HOPEFULLY the last day.

At ~10kb/sec there are about 800MB and ~21 hours left. And this is where my DVD burner started giving me various errors (whilst ruining 2 perfectly nice discs). Sigh.

Current status: 1908.5MB (downloaded) / 2802.3MB (total)

Time remaining: ~80 hours

User status: Bored

Hopefully, some dental surgery scheduled for tomorrow morning (yes, the graceful person that I am, walked into a metal door, damaged a tooth, has to pulled out, expecting lots of pain) which will show me a more potent meaning of pain that will make waiting for Windows Vista to download somewhat less harsh.

I've been wanting to do this for a long time. My father and I will be making four Republic Commando helmets. Plaster of Paris, with appropriate color coats. 5" each. Dad's got a lot of experience in this kind of stuff - I prefer 3D polygons. But it will be great to learn such an art. I'll need to start doing "physically" connected things to avoid (more) psychological problems in the future. Sigh. I'll need to distance myself from my computers. :-(

If it goes really well, I might even make a 3 feet tall bust of Delta 38. I love the shape of the helmet. Next would be a wallmounted bass relief work of a Krayt Dragon stalking a Bantha on the Jundland Wastes. Or maybe a lightsaber. Oooh. Maybe I should do that! Ohhh .... or maybe VADER's helmet! Ohhh ... or maybe a small X-Wing... Or oohhhhh....

Sigh. You'd think that after almost half a dozen hurricanes, you'd get used to 'em. Well, I still get that knot in my stomach when I hear about an approaching storm.

A new one is expected to hit in 10 to 12 hours. We'll be without electricity for a day or more. I hope my aux power unit and Tablet PC last me long enough.

Here's the storm's satellite picture.

The place I've marked is Bhuj. My town. Also known as Lars Moisture Farm in select circles. The province is Kutch, aka Tatooine.

"Take care of" neighbour with the stereo blaring at 1:54am.

PS. Destroy the Bangles CDs there as well.

I know I'm gonna get some hate mail from the Anti-MS people out there, but I already get that, so I'm just gonna say it. I'm tired of hearing Big Bad Microsoft. Yes, you know who you are, mac.

For the past 4 or so years, I've been in touch with many people at Microsoft. And they've been so nice and helpful. I wasn't even a Microsoft Partner Program member back then, but they were still really nice to me. Till date there hasn't been an incident where I've seen any 'attitude' from any Microsoftie. I've always gotten good advice, good tools, and met some good people who are really passionate about their work. They've helped my business grow. They're good to me, so I'm good to them.

My ISV Buddy (a special contact inside Microsoft that participating ISVs are assigned) is a great guy and has been very helpful in many a projects and the general goals of my company. And even when Microsoft says "Beta versions are not supported", they still get you enough help that anyone with more than three braincells can get his problem solved.

So where does this Big Bad Microsoft image come from? Maybe its the lawsuits and all that legal stuff. While I don't know much about US Commerce and Trade Laws, I still think that forcing Microsoft to rip out all the good stuff from their OS (ie, IE or WMP) or trying to force them to reveal their code, is preposterous. I'm not gonna bad mouth Linux or any open-source communities and/or proponents. I say let them be. I have nothing against open-source. I just don't want to use it myself. I'll save my flames for the lawsuits for another post, and get back to the point.

People bitch about IE and Windows and Microsoft in general all the time, but they are still using Windows. I say, yell all you want, but it won't be a valid point until you shift to a Mac OSX or something else and then say what you want to say. I may or may not agree with you, but I will respect you. Boycott Microsoft, THEN TALK. Of course, then again, if you're not using MS products and still bitch about it, then you're insulting me and my choice - and that's personal, bub!

A good friend of mine (who'll probably kill me for blogging about this) said "Microsoft killed my beloved Netscape". Really? Did Bill Gates take a butcher knife and go slit Netscape's throat in a dark back alley? (Who is the head of Netscape, btw? I should find that out sometime). Maybe Microsoft Covert Operations (formerly codenamed "Cloak and Dagger") took a bunch of choppers and landed on Netscape's roof and killed people and set fire to their building?

What pisses me off even more is people who have not had any real connection to Microsoft saying bad things about it. That's just wrong. Judging Microsoft because it's CEO allegedly said "I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to [expletive deleted] kill Google." is wrong. Judge him if you want to. Maybe Steve Ballmer's attitude or business concepts are bad (tho it's not what I personally believe. Then again, I do find Ballmer a bit intimidating even tho I havent seen him in person), but it still doesn't qualify the entire entity to become a bad thing.

The simple truth is, people are making a choice. If the Microsoft opponents want to make a difference, they should spend their time publicizing their open-source OSes and programs instead of slagging Microsoft all the time.

A kind request to the Microsoft opponents, please, PLEASE, make POINTS. Give us some valid points. Not some competing grocery shops and free delivery service advantage anologies. Valid points.

And remember, Microsoft and it's competitors can peacefully coexist. They just have to keep up.

To quote one of the rare movies about .NET, "Special Thanks to Microsoft for empowering slobs like us"

PS. FYI, I've been on the other side. I was there in the Java trenches, and the PHP compound, the whole "LAMP" thing. It wasn't that much fun. So dont bother saying I dont have a wide enough perspective!

People often wonder why I keep re-inventing the blog and my company's site, and practically every site I've personally owned.

Each site has a different reason, governed by the same philosophy. The philosophy borders on trade secret, so I won't go into it too deeply. Essentially, it's to show our ability.

What only people who work for me or are close to Nukeation know is that till date while only 14 versions (in 7 years) of Nukeation.com have been published, we have made over 120 versions of it. Not all turn out to be that good. Some don't fit our needs. Sometimes we just come up with an even better idea and scrap the old one.

But none of the talent, energy, or pixels are wasted. We put 'em on ice, and reuse it for clients or other projects.

This new "heaven" colored look of the blog is 80% the same as the upcoming version of www.Nukeation.com. It derives from the codename "Regen" look of Nukeation.com that was scrapped before it's current version was published. Now, we're reusing Regen, and merging it with the current look to create a splice that is better in every way - navigation, look and feel, readability, searchabilit, and general structure.

I also must confess that I went overboard with the Vista look of my blog. I was too mesmerized by the Vista look. It messed up readability and was CRAP when you look at the HTML. It was a mistake. That's why I adopted a modified version of RegenX look.

Let's see how long this one lasts. Vista/Aero had a full 40 days (since 5th August). I suspect RegenX might last longer.

Being an "Unfortunate" - one of the small group of people who were gonna be at the PDC, but couldn't due to technical reasons (mine being not able to get a visa on time) - is worse than being someone who just didn't or couldn't go.

I think I handled it fine the past few months since the visa incident (I could get a visa, but not until AFTER the PDC). I thought I would be able to get through it. I had two options, brave it, or stick my head in the sand (Ostrich Evasive Action #918). Being the dumbass that I am, I went for "Brave it". I should've stuck my head in sand. Ostriches have a lot more intelligence than me!

Now, here I am reliving childhood traumas of not being "included" in school trips and being "excluded" from the "special groups" just coz I was intellectual (yup, I was a BASIC programmer since age 4). Everywhere you go on the net or even in your MSN buddy list you see something about the PDC. Apparently I also couldn't see the Gates keynote live coz it was an internet gridlock and no connections were available. Freakin' bad luck!

At this point, I'd like to give a shout to Nickolas "ActiveNick" Landry for giving me some relief. He pops up on MSN with the personal tag - "Not at the PDC ... stop asking :(". He had client obligations. I feel sorry for him. Being so close (in the same country - I had to cross half the world! ... if I could've gone, that is) but being so far. But I feel better for me.

Sigh. If you see me blogging a week from now, it will mean that I survived. If not, learn something from my death and it won't be all that meaningless. Do whatever you have to. Bomb an embassy (Big Brother if you're listening, no it wasn't me - nor would I do something like this - just kidding), hijack a plane, bribe a Microsoftie, take Carl Franklin hostage - do anything! But BE AT THE NEXT PDC. Or else you'll end up like me - enduring pics of Paul Thurrott in a muscle-shirt just to see the cool hardware he has wired up in his hotel room in LA.

The irony of it all is that a web designer doesn't have time to update his own website! Well, I spent about an hour or two every week for the past month or so, and FINALLY www.DigitalExile.net is now gone v2.0!!

I added the complete Art Collection! I used to work with Corel PhotoPaint to make paintings, but I recently got Painter IX - it's a wonderful software - and I've made the "Exile" collection in Painter IX mostly. Also added a TON of new photos - including the all new LIGHTNING collection.

So check it out - http://www.digitalexile.net and feel free to drop by any comments.

My parents, for some weird reason, watch this dial-in game show every weekday. They also call in, but get the usual reply "If you are selected, we will call you."

Well, today, they DID CALL! Mom picked up the phone, and the guy on the other end recited their official marketing tag-line, and told her her entry number. Mom (the poor dear was exhausted, probably) misunderstood him and thougth he was asking if this was that phone number. She said "Sorry, wrong number." :-/

I don't know what to say, except I'm scared because I have a lot of genetic material from that woman!

People say RPGs (or Role Playing Games) are like real life. Well, what many people don't get is that life is RPG as well. It's a subtle thing - but the "righteous" character loving RPG'ers might have a better handle on life than the rest.

Life is all about INF (Influence), DEX (Dexterity), REP (Reputation), and of course, Money.

INF is the main modifier in life. Especially business. While I'm not a hardcore RPG fan, I love Morrowind and KOTOR. And I've learned from them.

For example, some months ago, I was new in "town" and did not have much of a REP value. So I helped out this established Lord in the town. I gained INF, and because he told everyone in town about me, my REP went wayyyy up and I got new work.

Don't you sometimes wish that RPGs were even more open ended? Well, try playing RPG in real life - its as freakin' open ended as could be. Just be careful - there are no Quick Loads and Quick Saves here.

I suddenly find out that my broadband connection is NOT gonna be 256k, but 512k! Freakin' nice! It's gonna be contended, but who cares - it's better than 115k that I get on this cell phone!

Well, WILL get it it in a few weeks. But finally, in this dustball of a town which should've been named Mos Eisley, I am finally getting a 256k broadband/ADSL connection!

Having the distinction of being the top internet user in the entire province, they're both courting me to take their connection. I'm going for the BSNL (Government) connection first - will see how it is, then if later on the other private one seems better, I'll go for that.

In any case, my T-16 Skyhopper is suddenly gonna be an X-Wing! The womprats won't stand a chance now!

Alternating between cold drizzles and scorching sunshine, the road back home is becoming boring. My blogging addiction keeps me alive - that too only when I'm in range of a wireless service zone.

Expecting to be back home in 6 hours.

Almost finished Dr. Donald Norman's EMOTIONAL DESIGN. He's a brilliant man - check out his site www.jnd.org for a sampler of the book.

I also finished the almost-final draft of my article THE HUMAN UI. Will finish it completely by the time I get home. It should be published shortly. I hope it will be helpful to all developers and designers working under the Windows flag.

Ok ... connectivity is down ... going offline. Sigh.

My sister (whom I'm visiting) and I went to Crossword, the largest book store chain in the country. They used to have such wonderful books. A visit to the store was a regular highlight for this farm boy everytime I visit my sister. But lo and behold, these idiots have a stupid collection of music, books, comics, and just about everything they sell! Quality doesn't stick does it? Well, I'm sticking to Amazon.com from now on!

I did end up buying "Battle Surgeons", a collection of 100 works by O Henry, and an assorted collection of Edgar Ellen Poe. I also got a few CDs: soundtrack from That Thing You Do, Sting: Sacred Love, John Williams conducts Star Wars Symphony (special collection from Sony Classical). I did have to stop browsing for a few minutes when I had to go wash my hands when I accidentally touched a Britney Spears disc.

The highlight of this was that I also found a copy of RESURRECTION OF EVIL - the Doom3 Expansion. Can't wait to get back, and get my hands on the double-barreled shotgun.

I shall be leaving tomorrow (Sunday) and arriving back around midnight.

I leave you with this (very appropriate) quote (for me) printed on free bookmarks they have at the store:

"When I get a little money, I buy books: and if any is left, I buy food and clothes." - Desiderius Erasmus

This is more or less a meaningless post. I just wanted to blog while on the road. Just so that I can say, yes, I've done it too.

Being in the "big city", I'm realizing how much of an isolationist and a "farm boy", I've become. The moment you start being awed by a 20 storey building, you have to come to your senses. Hey, its not my fault. I live in a Class-5 Earthquake Zone - that's as bad as it gets - and we're not allowed to have more than 2 storey buildings where I live.

In any case, I have nice adaptability skills. And I'm not gawking that much. I'm not whining "Uncle Owen" anymore either.

Back on Monday. Might blog before that. I'm addicted. There's no turning back.

This becomes more of a project now wavering between an animated short or a novella with a frickin' cool cover and a few visuals.

In any case, it's supposed to be set in a world somewhere between Neo-Tokyo and Cyrodiil. Let's see where this goes.

For now I leave you with a three cool wallpapers. 3M+ renders.

1280x1024 1024x819	1280x1024 1024x819	1280x1024 1024x819

This had to happen y'know. Too much GitS, GitS:Innocence, and GitS:SAC results in stuff like this. Especially when you add the already philosophical mode I usually am in.

Here's the first draft of something "complete" I've written in a LONG time.

Sentience.pdf (38.61 KB) Copyright © 2005 Dax Pandhi. All rights reserved.

Want more? Here's some geeky philosophy.

Developer Tools - be it Visual Studio or some lowly plugin - it is a form of perpetual motion. It winds its own spring, and keeps going, and going, and going. Now that's something to think about.

Scared of a fast-paced Commando mission being too close to real life (and work) for relaxation, I pulled out Morrowind and reinstalled it. Over 20 hours into the game, this time as an Argonian called Ang-Tii (homage to Timothy Zahn's secret monks), I am on my way to solve the mystery of the Neravarine. I do have a nice bit of cash - the bonus of being a Rogue/Thief.

I am going on a sudden trip for a long weekend. Will have some time on my hand. I installed Morrowind on my Tablet PC so I can play while travelling. This oughta be fun. Never played something so complex while on the road. Thankfully I won't be the one driving.

I can't wait for Oblivion to ship. The voice cast sounds good - Patrick Stewart as Emperor Uriel Septim VII, and Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) who will possibly play a "guide" role to your character. Check out the HD trailer on the official site. Damn I can't wait to get my hands on this game.

Sigh. Alrights - enough of Tamriel and magic and myth and wonders and bitchin' weapons - gotta get back to work.

Sickness, Alient Artifacts, and the Past - all three things hurt (often).

Ever since this morning, I've been feeling quite down. Nothing serious. Mostly stress, fatigue, and lack of a social life. After sleeping from 10am to 8pm, I was still not feeling too good. To battle these things, I started working on some alien artifacts. I've been wanting to do some cool, totally profitless, creative work. I have a bad habit of being focused on good, practical, and profitable goals. Unfortunately, that doesn't include too much fun. Don't get me wrong, I love my work. But you do need some fun. As my Uncle says "All work and no play, makes you hippy and gay". Trying desperately to avoid these things (no offence to anyone who is either or both), I say down, did a quick sketch with Alias SketchBook Pro on my Tablet and opened 3D Studio MAX after so long.

I might follow up on this "project" later this weekend if I can squeeze it into my schedule. For now, I leave you with a test shot.

The final result, tentatively titled "From Oblivion" (personal tribute to Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), will be a 20 to 30 second clip - or even more than one 15 second clips - I will post 'em here over the weekend.

Special Credit to Jessica Pletcher for some 3D design advice. You rock, Jess!

If you are good at math, you are wondering where did the third hurting part go - The Past. Right. Well, in my sleep, someone in my neighborhood started playing "Walk Like An Egyption" - mostly because I hate The Bangles (like anyone with more than 2 brain cells). I think he or she must've been pissed off by yours truly during some point in time and wanted revenge. Well, it worked! The madhre mucking (to use a curse created by Tim Zahn in STAR WARS: VISION OF THE FUTURE) tune is stuck in my head. I am currently listening to Dargaard to get it out of my head (and for that nice gothic/ethnic inspiration for the Alien Artifact).

I said it first, I said it again, and I confirmed it too. And now it's officiall announced. Acrlyic will be the Visual Designer for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF, formerly codename "Avalon"). Check out the August CTP.

I've said it before and I'll say it again AVALO-- eh, Windows Presentation Foundation ROCKS!

Finally, after days of cloudy, gloomy weather (which didn't result in rain either), the sun shines brightly today. As the sun sets in the west (like it would ever set in North!), and as a large database is being copied to my client's server, I sit in the twilight enjoying the last rays of the day, with a cool breeze, and Dr. Don Norman's books Emotional Design, and The Design of Everyday Things. These books serve as an inspiration for my article "The Human UI" (also inspired by The Human Factor columns from MSDN).

That's right - NukeBall, the Ultimate RUID Tool for Visual Studio 2005 is now nearing it's release. We're putting out a public beta of the Express Edition (analogous to non-alchoholic bear, but a bit better) near the end of the month. We have officially announced the contents and features of the software, the Express Edition, IDE Integration and more. Check out the website at http://www.nukeball.com

We still have a few slots left for beta testers. We give amazing rewards. For info contact beta [ at ] nukeball [ dot ] com.

 

Excerpt from a recent highly philosophical and self-insight filled e-mail written at 3am to a close friend after having a great long distance phone conversation. Please bear in mind, these are some very delicate, personal feelings that I'm sharing and I only ask that you be gracious when reading it.

From: Dax Pandhi

To: Unknown

Subject: Epilogue

Hey ...

In retrospect, I think some of my comments were a bit distorted. No, I'm not talking about the audio quality. Aside from sleep deprivation (which is a normal thing for me nowadays), I'm not used to talking. Talking as in with my mouth. I rely too much on text conversations via MSN Messenger and all. I keep placing human beings in a mechanistic paradigm. While I do have a certain degree of "love" and understanding for the machinist and nihilistic philosophies of the early 20th century, I think my work is affecting me. Hence, my saying I will leave it someday. Anyways, before I go off topic and forget what I was gonna say (finally found that digital note I scribbled) here it is.

[ irrelevant content removed ]

The bitch of it all is however that I just remembered that while I did want to share these thoughts, it is not what I intended to ask. And now even with sleep deprivation, I think I'll have to use a mallet on my head to get some sleep, because I'll probably be trying to remember what I forgot. Why do we always need to remember things we forgot? It just makes it all so much harder!

I prefer a direct, non-calculatory, non-scientific (?), non-logical, mind-to-matter approach. I (and probably have been for some time), as they used to say in the ol' west, am gonna wing it. :) Life is much better when you know less - about your life, about yourself, and about the future - unpredictability is the oxygen - especially for a moi. Then again, when the Moon goes dark, I become a micro-manager. Arrgh. I'm gonna be the death of me. :P

At this point in time, I'm only partly conscious and feel like I've been drinking one too many vodkas so don't mind any stupid blabbering I might write or have already written. Then again I don't really like vodka - must be why I feel like crap - I like dark rum above everything else. Never took to beer. Which is good coz Gujarat is a dry state - alcohol is illegal. Damn governments.

"As Good As It Gets" is starting on TV. Am gonna go watch that. I especially love the part when Jack Nicholson suddenly yells in the shrink's office "What if this is as good as it gets?" - maybe that's how life should be lived - like "right now" is the best your life is ever gonna get. Of course, the dark cloud behind that silver lining is that it makes you live in a permanent fear of tomorrow. OH GOD! You're right. About me loving to instigate things, just like you said. Hmm. Maybe you know me better than I do. Okay, next time I'm trying to figure myself out, I'll just ask you. Of course, if I want to ask you I'll probably have to write it down otherwise I'll forget like today and will probably drive myself crazy - even more so if I think of another thing to ask you and remind myself that I had yet one more thing to ask you which I forgot before and still don't remember. Exponential damage. Now THAT would be the death of me.

Sigh. Never mind the senile blabbering of this old buffoon. I'll go watch the movie and pass on silently into the night. Of course, that's damn poetic only until I wake up in the morning feeling young again and start ripping everything apart like hell only to exhaust myself after 48 hours and start feeling old and thinking that I feel like I've been drinking too many vodkas - which I wouldn't like coz I never took to the taste of Vodka. I like dark rum above everything else. Never took to beer as well. Which is good coz Gujarat is a dry state - booze is illegal. Damn those government bastards.

See - old people forget. Damn I'm getting old. Arrgh. There's one of those grey hairs again.

Paradigms, paradoxes, secrets of life, and mysteries enfolding them all - nothing is worth a strong, solid mallet which helps you sleep rather than those other things. A mouse named Jerry taught me that. :)

Okay - I'm going now. Really.

G'night, or g'day - whichever it is for you. :)

Dax

PS. I will understand if your murderous instincts come out after reading this e-mail. I don't blame you. Right now, I want to kill myself too. Of course, being old, I'll forget that feeling and start liking myself again and then go on blabbering more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and then some more until I want to kill myself. Of course, being old I will forget that feeling and start liking myself again and then go on blabbering... :P

PPS. WOW! You're still reading this? Damn. You deserve a lot more credit that I give you. Then again, you probably will always deserve more credit no matter how much I give you. That sentence seems negative, but believe me, that's not how I meant it. Btw, it was great to talk to you. Let's do it again soon.

If you would like to sign that petition about locking me up in a mental asylum, please see Dr. Igor Schmeckle. If you would like to offer your condolences to my family, please contact them directly. If you found this post humorous or hysterical, I think you're a heartless jerk! But I won't mind, coz I'll probably forget about it by morning. Right now, I feel like I've had one too many vodkas - which I wouldn't like coz I never took to the taste of Vodka. I like dark rum above everything else. Never took to beer as well. Which is good coz Gujarat is a dry state - booze is illegal. Damn those government bastards.

In a desperate attempt to release the build up of excessive creative energy in me, I spent the last few hours creating this Vista/Aero look for my blog. Would love to hear some feedback.

This is all Vista. This is also an experiment for me. I have various assets on the internet - my business website, my upcoming software's website, my personal website with art & photography, and of course, my blog (all links at the top of the page). I'm trying to establish this blog as a hub between all this.

What I would love to know is whether this blog is just the private/public form of therapy for myself, or is it actually informative or at least entertaining. Does anyone even read it regularly? If you do read my blog - or even if this is your first time, please drop me a line and tell me what you think. It'd make very happy.

Oh, and thanks for reading my blog!!

I'm very happy to report that I've found Vista Beta 1 to be so stable and reliable that I'm moving a few projects onto the Vista platform. I'm also thinking of installing it on my Tablet PC over the weekend.

To move work on to Vista, first I had to see if all my work applications worked properly or not. Office 2003 has worked nicely, and so has Corel Graphics Suite 12. Next came VS2005.

Visual Studio 2005 Setup runs in all it's aero-enabled glory.

Somehow, the setup failed when it started to install the only missing prerequisite - MSXML (3 or 6, I can't remember at this moment). I had to go the WCU folder on the DVD and manually run that install. After that, VS2005 installed very quickly - faster than XP - or is that just my imagination? In any case, after the uneventful install, I launched VS2005 and it didn't give a single error or warning. You can see the IDE in the shot below.

The Aero "Express" version Form shown here is the same theme I encountered when installing Longhorn on my VPC. The cool thing (tho maybe it might appear annoying later on) is that the animations run while you're designing the form. The default button's blue tone fades in and out; the progress bar's "filled" are has a shine pass over it (marquee mode makes the bar show up as 100% and the shine keeps passing over it to show somethign is, in fact, happening). The only problem I saw so far in VS2005 on Vista, is that some parts of the UI - mainly the toolstrips - fail to draw, and end up as black blocks. Forcing a redraw (minimize and restore) solves it tho. Dragging / stretching tool windows causes it again. Not much of a problem tho.

I made this quick sample to see how things look. This was a two-fold test. I installed our untested build of NukeBall, the upcoming Rapid User Interface Development tool we are making here at Nukeation Studios, in Visual Studio 2005. I saw that the endless hours of coding paid of. It worked. If you look at the top left corner of the image above, you can see the NukeForms command sitting next to your standard Add Item button. While we don't officially support Vista 1, each and every piece of content in NukeBall does, in fact, work on Vista.

I quickly made this sample below with NukeWads and NukeForms. The lower progressbar is in marquee mode (infinite progress).

I tried over 27 different applications I've made (including some made long ago in VB6) and they all ran nicely on Vista, except for a couple of those VB6 apps that relied on some obsolete code. All in all, I give Vista as many thumbs-ups as can. Very cool. Can't stop saying that. I fear I might scream VISTA in the middle of the nigh- day (I work at night, sleep at day).

Coming up next: Adding Aero to my blog, and more.

At 23:29 on Wednesday night my long running download of Windows Vista Beta 1 (formerly Windows codename "Longhorn") was finally completed.

With a shudder, I tested the ISO image for the possible corrupt data and as I held my breath, I saw the progress bar reach 100% without a single error. There is a God! And he writes managed code!!

I fire up Virtual PC 2004. I start the installation. Very smooth. A bit dull, and took too long even on a 1064MB RAM VPC. The installation takes over an hour but it WORKS. It's installed. It's rebooting. It starts up... in 16 colors.

No problem. Let's install the drivers and VM Additions. There. 32-bit color. Wow. Looks coo- hey, wait a goddamn minute - I thought Aero was TRANSPARENT. Everything on the screen is shiny, but opaque. What the...? I google up some stuff, and find out (should've known) VPC doesn't support direct host hardware utilization. Damn.

I don't have any machine powerful enough that is also available for taking risks. Damn. No. Risking it on my Tablet - which doesn't have a CD or DVD Drive - would be foolish. So, I scour a stand-by PC, and rip out the 72 gig drive (PATA, yuk) and plug it into my main production PC - a big 3GHz HT PC with 2 gigs of RAM, 2 monitors, and a 128MB nVidia GeForce FX series graphics card. Dual boot will be fine. If anything goes wrong, I can just rip out the extra disk and be done with it. But BIOS doesn't detect the damned disk. I check the cables and mess with the jumper settings. Master, slave, primary, secondary. Crap. Okay, so I finally have it running now. I log into Windows XP, and see the 2 new partitions in My Computer. Phew! I run the setup file, enter the long product key, click next, and BOOM - the setup stub crashes. I try again. It crashes. And again. And again. So, I say "<bleep> it". I write the ISO onto a blank DVD. 7 minutes later, the disc is burnt. I say, hey what the heck, let's try it once more from the disc. Setup runs successfully!! It's a Disc-run only thing, I guess.

Setup runs nice and quite (faster than the VPC install, of course) while I watch Cartoon Network at 4:30am. I spent the time between the download's completion and now to mess with drives, old PCs, new PCs, and Virtual PC! 39 minutes later, it's installed. I gingerly touch the mouse as the setup finishes up. A new window pops up...

... I stop squinting long enough to peek out of the corner of my eye and - OH NO, OH MY GOD...

it's TRANSLUCENT.  Longhorn's Aero UI in all it's glory. Blurring the background and casting a drop shadow. I had a little tear in my eye.

Unable to contain the joy, but wary not to cause any damage to the beta installation, I start popping open folders and being amazed by all the eye candy. To quote Michele Leroux Bustamante, "No, please, make it stop, don't make me go back, I don't want to go back...I'll never go back...ok, fine, I'll go back...for now...but I won't like it..." All I could think of was what will I do now? How will I take these eyes back to that old, dry, and boring Legacy OS? XP themes aren't that nice anymore.

Pushing that damning thought to the lower recesses of my so-called mind, I plow on. It's SO cool. The graphics, of course, are. But I'm talking about the organization features. The MUCH needed improvements.

You're probably asking where are the screenshots? well, you will have to wait. I haven't installed Corel Capture on Longhorn, and Paint+PrntScrn is too tiresome. I'll post more tomorro-- uh later today - I see the sun coming out.

Once I was satisfied to experience the glorious interface and the features, I accessed the other hard disk, opened my Visual Studio projects folder, and started running various WinApps built in VS2005/.NET 2.0 - they ran nicely. So did all the 1.1 apps. I tried to hotwire some of them instead of installing them - .NET ROCKS (and that's a show too) - it all worked.

Two negative points which I will elaborate on in my detailed post later, are:

The CLOSE buton on the top-right corner has to be the ALIGNED to the FAR RIGHT - no extra pixels. I have a habit of slamming the cursor into the corner and blindly clicking to close a window. That doesn't work in Vista, as there is some extra space after the red button.

The second point is that the new Common Dialogs (Open/Save) have a new sidebar with common places and common searches for easy navigation. The feature is quite cool, but the layout is all cramped. In some places in Vista, I do feel claustrophobic.

Alright, that ends my experience in Vista-land for the moment. More this evening - with screenshots.

...things that I know, nobody told me...things that I saw - they still controoool mee...

As I listen to The Strangest Thing by George Michael at the maximum volume possible with these headphones, I see the File Transfer Manager's progress bar hit 86% - 336.8MB and dropping at a rate of 10.4KB/sec. After a horrible power failure due to my power supply unit being burnt to a toasty crispy black piece of junk, I fear completing this download only to find out that the file was corrupted midway at around 660MB.

Internet, power, and human failures notwithstanding, I've spent over 75 hours as of now to download Vista Beta 1. If this download is corrupted... I shudder to think of what might happen.

We'll find out the truth in 8 hours and 57 minutes. May the Force be with me.

So I waited a few years, and then some months, and then many days, until Microsoft released Windows Vista Beta 1. So, it's a 2.42GB ISO. I have to start downloading it now (because it will be sent to MSDN Subscibers in DVD form in SEPTEMBER!). So I have to download something that I will get for free (well, not free free).

So what's the problem? The problem is that I'm downloading on a freakin' 115kbps connection via my cell phone which serves as a modem - the fastest connection available in this town-sized replica of tattooine. I started downloading on the 27th, and it this very moment, I still have 1066.5MB left to download at 10.1kbps (which is around ~30 hours worth of downloading).

The only stuff I know about Vista is the couple of videos I've seen on Channel9 and at Paul Thurrott's site, plus the stuff I read at http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

I just hope I can see everything first hand and in proper performance on my 2GIG VPC.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Still waiting... sigh.

UPDATED: 4 hours later

Current status - 969.7MB ~29 hours

While waiting for Longho- er, Vista to download, I...

• read 3 Star Wars novels
• found out that your thumb is more sensitive that your index finger as it is used less often and the nerves are more sensitive as a result
• have over 183 'lines' in my thumbprint
• saw something resembling Joe Pesci near the center of my thumbprint
• found out that eating realy spicy food before going to bed gives you horrible dreams about your 2GB download file being corruped
• made over 17 backups of the temporary download file for Vista, including one "fallback milestone" at 660MB when a power failure occured and my UPS died with it
• started preparing for NukeBall's CD production, booklet printing, manual design, and other such stuff
• updated the frontpage of Nukeation
• re-read the "Q Continuum" trilogy
• am closing in on the secret of life and the universe - I think I might completely solve that mystery when I download Beta 2
• photographed and studied a lizard hanging out outside my window (I'm the only one at 3am who has light on, so the entire state's insects visit me at night)
• discovered 78 ways to kill mosquitos
• started working on my article 'The Human UI'
• listened to Burning Man in a loop for 3 hours
• finished (from start to finish) Republic Commando over 4 times
• finished WORK
• the list is building...

NukeBall - The ultimate RUID Tool

REPUBLIC COMMANDO

Zero Hour - Clone Wars - Geonosis

I order Four-Oh to point and send him to recon the forward area. Clone Advisor 01's voice pipes into my helmet: "Delta, now that you've destroyed the gun placement, we are making a supply drop near your position. This includes an anti-armor attachment for your DC-17."

Scorch lets out a whoop of joy. "Yes! More explosives! Delta Advisor, you just made my day!"

Time to get inside the Seperatist Core Ship. "Alright, Delta's move out." "Aye, sir." Fixer takes point as Sev follows behind with sniper cover. Scorch keeps looking for the anti-armor drop, and I bring up the rear.

"LOOK OUT! BUGS!" A swarm of Geonosians drop from a hidden cave from the mesa behind us. The deep orange sun blinds my vision as I take aim and punch plasma into the onslaught of bugs.

Scorch lobs a grenade into the midst, sending sticky yellow bug juice everywhere.

"Alright, there may be more of them. Let's move out."

"Look, boss, there's the Core Ship." says Delta Four-Oh, looking at the gigantic spherical ship as big as a small mountain.

"You sure, Forty? Maybe there's another one around the corner." quips Scorch.

"Keep this comm clear. Let's go."

We move out, strangling Geos and electrocuting droids. From the corner of my visor I can see Four Oh happily plunging his Katarn Armor Vibro-blade into a Geo's heart - or whatever they have that passes for it.

"Aaaarggh" Someone screams.

SCORCH! Swarming Geonosians are sticking their pikes into Six-Two's armor. His vitals look bad on my HUD. "Sev, sniper cover! NOW!" "Snipe position, ready, boss." Under Oh-Seven's steady stream of plasma covered metallic bolt cover, I crawl my way over to assist Six-Two. I plung into my backpack for the Bacta-Utility. I plug it into Scorch's implant and pump him with bacta. An electric wake up call, and he slowly gets up.

"Thanks, Boss. Six-Two, ready for action."

"Alright, let's move in."

"Oh-Seven: ammo spent."

"Four-Oh covering vector."

We hike through the broken mesas and wreckages of fighter craft - Geonosian and Republic. I see a dead trooper, half burried under a laser cannon mount. What a waste of good genes. Not too far, we see the supply drop being released. But a Clone Commando's life isn't that easy.

Delta-40 opens comm: "Boss, we have SBDs converging on our waypoint." Super Battle Droids. Just what we need with almost no ammo.

"Delta, take sniper position there." "Aye, sir."

"Four Oh, see if that turret is operational." I say pointing to a half broken turret placed by the now dead clone troopers. "Roger."

"Scorch, cover me - I'm going in for the supplies." "You got it, Delta Lead."

With plenty of cover fire - though it would not remain for long - I sprint for the supply drop. Scorch throws in an Electro-static grenade, temporarily inhibiting the large battle droids, but sucking some juice from my personal shields as well. I jump for the attachment. There. I made it. I slap on the anti-armor attachment on the DC-17 and fire off the first roung, taking out all three of the Super Battle Droids.

"WOOOHOO" "Quite. Delta Advisor, we are at the entrance to the Core Ship with moderate resistance, but the entrance is shielded."

Seven yells from his sniping position way behind, "Stupid droids! Let us through!"

"Delta Squad," the Advisor joins in, "make your way West. I'm updating the Objective Tracker. You will be able to go through the aft loading bay. Once you reach the entrance to the loading bay, I'll give you further instructions. Delta Advisor out."

"Boss, we need to demo this rockslide to get through... and I'm not just saying that coz I love to blow things up."

Scorch's pod brother, Seven, replies, "Yes you are."

"Alright, Delta, give me an explosive solution."

Scorch plants a demolition charge as Sev finds a new position to snipe from. Fixer covers Scorch's back, as I ready the AntiArmor for the next onslaught of droids.

"Demo is ready when you are, Three-Eight."

"Stand back, Deltas." BOOM! The rocks turn into dust as a barrage of laser fire cuts through the cloud of smoke and dust.

"SBDs!"

"Delta, sniper - there. You, cover him. Four-Oh, sniper position - there." I cover them with the anti-armor rounds as they take position. A Super Battle Droid takes the chance of grabbing Fixer when my anti-armor rounds are depleted.

Oh for crying out loud - I can't let his crush my brother. I let go of my weapon, stick out the vibroblade from under my gauntlet sheath and ram it into the droid's posterior shell, ripping wires, circuits and - at last - hydraulic command units! The droid goes down as Four-Oh looks for a bacta dispenser. Command had made a drop of hundreds of them across the battle fields on Geonosis as the battle began.

Suddenly, Seven yells "Look out!"

Scorch: "What is that thing?"

Clone Advisor joins the comm: "Delta Squad, pay attention. This is a dwarf spider droid. One of the nastiest anti-infantry units the Trade Federation has. It's armor is rated for starship hulls. The only weak spot is the red control orb on it's abdomen. If you can destroy it you can disable the droid."

Scorch: "So, hit the big red ball on the spider. Right."

But the Spider Droid, as large as a drop ship, hunkers on towards us - and fires. A large plasma round takes both Seven and Fixer down. And then it "sits", closing down the gap between it's hull that exposes the control orb with it's frontal leg plates.

Damn.

"Scorch, take up anti-armor position there. It's up to you and me now..." and I run towards the Spider Droid, DC-17 all charged up... Kote!

So (Oh my God, I'm starting to talk like a Microsoftie!) as you may know, I'm a fan of sci-fi and sci-fantasy. Star Wars rates at #1, and Star Trek somewhere below it.

After reading almost a hundred Star Wars books, I picked up a couple of old Star Trek TNG paperbacks from the local bookstore. And while I do love 'em both, I think Star Wars is certainly more imaginative. Here's an example:

If there was an analogy to be made, in Star Wars the author would write, "The plant resembled an overgrown kowakian monkey-lizard."

In Star Trek (I'm reading ALL GOOD THINGS, at the moment), Worf is thinking, "The eskimos of 20th century North America had 16 words for ice, and Klingon only have 1 word for Honor."

WHY EARTH? WHY ALWAYS EARTH? AND WHY ALWAYS 20th FREAKIN' CENTURY EARTH? At least you can add another similarity to some fictional planet.

Looking back, Star Trek - the original series and the next generation (tho I think ENTERPRISE is better in this regard) seems more like a history trek than a futuristic trek. I love Picard. He's a fantastic, eloquent, elegant character. But his deep, deep nostalgia for 20th century crap is just too much.

Trekkies? Where art thy imagination?

YEEEXTRA, yeextra. Read all about it. NukeBoy makes breakthrough in his super-secret-world-take-over-software-application!

Finally, this puny little planet will be all mine - ALL ... MINE!!! Mmmmuuuuhahahahahaha.

 

Sorry about this weird post. I'm just very happy that the long standing problem (resolved in 3 lines of VB code, as usual), the upcoming, (hopefully) world changing (no world domination - scout's honor) add-in for Visual Studio 2005 (C#, VB, J#) is now finally on it's way. Of course, we won't be able to ship a full working version (except for the free Express Edition) until the actual RTM of VS2005 in November.

For now, the only thing I can tell you is that it's a RUID (Rapid User Interface Development) tool for Windows Forms application (C#, VB, J#) that is PURE .NET (zero redistributable assemblies, btw), it has some seriously cool features, an express edition (totally free) for personal or commercial usage, a massive visual library (600 or so at last count), and is titled NukeBall. Just wait till you see what the team has packed into this tiny little app that just might change the way you work!!

Hey Dudes! The word is out - they are making a full CGI Ninja Turtles movie!! Althought its supposed to be released in 2007, I don't mind waiting at all.

Turtles (the Ninja and normal kind) have been a fave since I was a kid. Ah, I remember seeing the first movie. Boy was that great! And then the second which was really cool (as far as sequels go). "Go ninja, go ninja, go!" Heh. That brings back memories. Vanilla Ice did bring down the mood a bit.

The official MOVIE site is up but gives very little info. The official TMNT site is the place to go for the time being.

I can't for the new generation to (re)discover words like "shell-shocked". Oh man, I'm so pumped I'm thinking of taking out my dusty old NES and those TMNT catridges.

It's been a while since I blogged. So here's a roundup of the main events that probably 2 and a half people care about!

DigitalExile.net is live!

My long planned personal site (after the demise of after-images.net) is now finally live. www.digitalexile.net

There are lots of new photographs available (for licensing, too), and my art collection and written works will be added soon. There's also a download section with small apps, wallpapers, and some random stuff available for download. Or will be soon.

My Blog rates #1 in searches

A pleasent surprise - I saw a referer tag in my server log for this blog (hey, that rhymes!) - for someone searching for "Pandhi" (my last name, you dumbass!). I decided to follow that search link on Yahoo and voila - the #1 (and many subsequent links) are for this very blog as well as my corporate site www.nukeation.com! The same is on Google. But there, my corporate site is first, and the blog after that. Needless to say I like Yahoo! better than Google. The blog is at #1 even if you search for Dr. JJ Rawal

Republic Commando still the best!

I play an hour of Republic Commando every night before I go to bed with Gratu'acuun ringing in my ears. This is better than Half-Life (1 or 2) and Doom combined. They're great games, but this just ROCKS MY WORLD!

Radio Acting Debut

A few weeks ago, I made my recording debut as the "Human Resources Executive of IBM" on the comedy online radio show MONDAYS (Episode 25) - download it! No, no. No autographs. You get a free autograph when you sign up for the Dax Pandhi Official Fanclub.

A GIG goes a long way

I finally added a gig of RAM to my 1GB system. Needless to say it works better. Though it generates more heat, I love the tradeoff.

Jungle Coast, Costa Rica

I'm helping out with the branding and e-solutions for a dear, dear friend Cynthia Najim's new real estate business. This is one of those fun projects I rarely get anymore (if you're a client of mine, no I didn't mean it like that - your projects are just important - this is just different coz there's unreal amounts of creative energy tingling it up). If you're looking for nice, affordable, and beautiful villas, cottages, or even farms - these are the people to call. Will post their website URL as soon as I finish it.

Am planning on going to Costa Rica next year, maybe.

Wiping the blood and grime off my helmet, I look towards the bridge. Kachirho's lights shine in the distance. As the smoke clears, and the deafening explosions stop, I can see the blurred forms of my brothers holding off the enemy, giving me cover fire so I can help our fallen brother. I hear Four-Oh's heavy breathing and soft groans under me. I realize I am standing on top of Delta-40, his white and green armor dented and splattered with blood - not his own. I get him up and send him to heal up at the near by bacta dispenser.

Delta-07 - Sev - snipes the onslaught of SBD's - their grey headless bodies seemingly immune to the plasma shots. Scorch - Delta-62, makes a joke, easing the pain as always. Advisor's voice echoes in my helmet - "Delta 38, we need to destroy that bridge now!"

The battle for the Wookies' freedom rests upon us - four lone commandos against an endless supply of Battle Droids, Super Battle Droids, and Trandoshan slavers. I remember a trooper's remarks - "Look! Commandos! If they're as good as I hear they are, they can win the war all by themselves." I hope that's true.

With Four-Oh - Fixer - at 100%, I move to take Six-Two's position. "Scorch, I need some radical restructuring." I can feel his eyes light up even behind his plasteel faceplate. "Roger that, Boss."

I lob a EM grenade hoping to slow down the SBDs. Damn. They're too tough. "Four-Oh, man that turret." Maybe he can take out a few more of them with some heavy fire power. "Turret. Got it, Delta Lead."

Delta-62 fixes a large explosive to the ammo crates lying on the bridge the Seperatists require for their occupation of Kashyyyk. "Boss, we better get off this bridge before we blow it up." But we're surrounded. There is no time to waste. The only way out is to destroy the Droid dispensers.

I relenquish my cover and order some cover fire. Dodging the twig-legged droids, knocking some out with my vibro-blade, I move in. I hear Sev taking some shrapnel. I set up an explosive on the dispenser, and start to set the timer. The large bay door opens. A spider droid. Fifteen tons of pure armor and firepower.

The bridge and dispensers primed for an explosive finish, we prepare for what we've been trained to do: die for the Republic.

"We'll make 'em remember the day they tried to blow up Delta Squad."

---

Never before have I seen such a perfect fusion of action, military tactics, breathtaking graphics, superb AI, and war chants that makes you want to die for your cause. STAR WARS: REPUBLIC COMMANDO is one of the BEST GAMES ever! It certainly knocked DOOM3 from first place on my list. Instead of the "lofty perspective of the Jedi", this games takes you into the trenches as you command 3 elite Clone Commandos - DELTA SQUAD - in 3 dangerous missions - Clone Wars: Zero Hour on Geonosis, repelling an invasion on the Republic Assault Ship PROSECUTOR in space, and a special mission on Kashyyyk that would end the Clone Wars. And while you play, whenever the going gets tough, the music keeps your spirits high. This is THE best game to come out from LucasArts (yes, they made this in-house - no outsourcing) EVER!

Baritone voices sing old Mandalorian war songs: (all songs are available for download at the site. I recommend VODE AN, RAGE OF THE SHADOW WARRIORS, and GRAT'UA CUUN, as well as the ambient tunes THE JUNGLE FLOOR, COMM INTERFERENCE, and KACHIRHO BY NIGHTVISION)

Kandosii sa ka'rta, Vode an.

(One indomitable heart, Brothers all.)

Coruscanta a'den mhi, Vode an.

(We, the wrath of Coruscant, Brothers all.)

Bal kote, darasuum kote, Jorso'ran kando a tome.

(And glory, eternal glory, We shall bear its weight together.)

Sa kyr'am Nau tracyn kad, Vode An.

(Forged like the saber in the fires of death, Brothers all.)

This music can literally set your blood on fire as you play the game and immerses you into the world of the Commando. It's the BEST soundtrack a game ever had. PERIOD!

You fight hand-to-hand as well as with your DC-17 modified blaster. Every close hit is rewarded with a generous splatter of sickly yellow geonosian blood on your face, which your helmet visor wipes with a laser wiper.

 Delta-38 "Boss" - Delta Leader

 Delta-07 "Sev" - Sniper / Weapons

 Delta-62 "Scorch" - Demolitions

 Delta-40 "Fixer" - Slicer (Hacker) / Tech

You issue commands to your 3 brothers - Delta 07, Delta 40, and Delta 62. Each has a distinct personality and voice (just coz you're clones don't mean you can't have a different accent - which are picked up from their respective instructors). You have the voice of Jango Fett - which was marvelously voiced by Temeura Morrison himself.

The missions are fast paced, dangerous, and set in breathtaking environments. And when you set NIGHT VISION on, it feels more real than a movie. The visuals look as if it is REAL. Just plain real. Mind boggling.

The game is based on the Unreal II engine (modified, of course). It shames the graphics of Unreal II. Then again, Unreal II was shameful in many ways. But the engine is, in fact, quite cool. Republic Commando shows its power very nicely.

The whole game often doesn't feel like a Star Wars game. The credits music is high-pitched rock music. The soundtrack is Mandalorian war chants. And the only time you see a lightsaber is when you see a deadbody of a Clone trooper who tried to use it. That's when your character says "An elegant weapon for a more civilized time. Well, guess what ... times have changed!"

I wish they would've added a mission from Episode III, where they escort Obi-Wan to Utapal. 3 missions seem a bit "small" once you've played it 6 times in 4 days. But it still rocks. Especially the one-liners. "Baby wookies? Nah, too cute." or "Boss, we gotta place a charge here, and I'm not saying this 'cause I like to blow stuff up."

The end is cool too. Very military-movie like. And you get a special appearance by General Greivous and Master Yoda. George Lucas took interest in the game too. It was his idea to give colored, personalized armor to each Commando - something he was thinking of doing in Episode III.

I recommend you go see the trailer on www.swcommando.com and then listen to the music and download the demo, and then order the game!!

It runs FANTASTIC on a GeForce FX / 128MB. Though a gig of RAM didn't hurt. :) And don't be afraid of this game if you're not so good with games like Rainbow-Six and all - this is more suitable for the Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 players. Just go download the damn, demo! NOW, soldier!

Delta Squad, move out!

KACHIRHO BY NIGHTVISION

There is also a book based on this game by Karen Traviss, called STAR WARS: Republic Commando - HARD CONTACT. Cool book. Worth reading.

Sigh. Another year - gone. At the height of my depression, I wanted to write something like Rory Blyth but I've plagerized more than my share of things over the last year.

Someone told me that I had reached "quarter-life", but I insisted that it's mid-life for me. How? Well, aside from the mid-life crisis, I'm turning into a nihilistic, machinistic, pessimist. So, they say pessimistic people die young, so I'm at mid-life now.

But then again I'm too optimistic to be pessimistic. But even my most optimistic thoughts have pessimistic points. While I can also find the silver lining in the darkest of clouds. Any doubt I'm a Gemini? Sigh. This damned polarity can be annoying at times.

But right now, as I write this depressing note, I'm feeling quite happy. Why? Well, first it's my birthday and I'll be spending it with my family. Second, tomorrow morning I get The Sith Lords (KotoR2) and Republic Commando and will probably waste half the weekend on it. Third, no matter how old I get, I'll probably be the youngest out of everyone I know (excluding my niece).

At the end of the day, I guess I don't feel old. Just wiser.

Ghost in the Shell 1 spoiler warning. No GitS 2 spoilers tho.

Ghost in the Shell 2, titled "INNOCENCE" has got to be one of my most favorite films EVER. This stands side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder with Star Wars - and being the super Star Wars maniac that I am, that means a lot!

Ghost in the Shell is a manga (japanese comic) by Masamune Shirow, a mysterious writer who has never been seen or photographed. Shirow is a pseudonym and nobody knowns his real name. This man is a genius - in many aspects far greater than Lucas or Roddenberry.

I won't go into details about the GitS universe. Go see the first film and come back.

The audio was more than half the experience. The sounds and music were amazing. Kenji Kawai hits another home run with this soundtrack - the opening haunting vocals stay with you long after the movie is over. The reuse of this music throughout the film, especially in the third act / main combat sequence with the Japanese War drums was fantastic!! And it's no coincidence the music and audio was so cool - it was all done at Skywalker Sound.

Batou's darkness has increased since the Major merged with the Puppetmaster. And this time, Mamoru Oshii goes really deep into philosophy. Humanism, machinist theories, and nihilism. Quite a powerful blend!! GitS2 is also one of the inspirations behind "Sentience" - a small something I wrote a while back - BEFORE I saw Innocence. I'll post the full essay here in a few days.

The finalé is very much action packed like in GitS, and Oshii uses that trademark Japenese music-volume-louder-than-sound-effects-when-super-action-starts technique very nicely.

The end may seem a bit anti-climactic but it's not - not if you really understand the philosophy.

I recommend getting a original Japanese version DVD with subtitles rather than an English dub.

It's worth owning the DVD. Go order it.

Oh, and did I mention that Ghost in the Shell (The first one) was the main inspiration behind THE MATRIX trilogy? They even ripped off some of the Major's moves to give to Trinity and Neo. Even some of the settings are similar to GitS.

We just had a power failure at 1:30am. It was damn hot, and I was sitting on the roof in my underwear (the neighbors didn't complain because of the darkness, and probably coz they were doing the same). As usual, I had my camera with me. I love star gazing. I was looking at the Milky Way - going from South to North in a straight arc. And I could swear I saw PINK in the milky clouds. Most photos of nebulae and galaxies are colored. Most are artifically colors - but in natural colors.

Anyways, so I push my S7000 to it's limits by setting the ISO/Sensitivity to max, and quality to 12 mega pixel. I put it on manual/B/Bulb setting and take hundreds of shots at a shutter speed of 15 seconds - open diaphragm. Here's the original - unenhanced photo.

As soon as the power came back, I switched on the PC, and transferred the pics. Using good ol' PhotoPaint I started enhancing the pictures. Here's a basic intensity-enhancment shot (2.8x intensity). You can see the pink colors in the clouds. I was psyched. I couldn't wait to blog it. But the proper enhancements would take time, so I just put this here at a 600 x something resolution. Hi-res later.

To show the average'd intensity of this area of the sky, here's a color-levels edited version.

This is the edge/other side of the frickin' place we *LIVE* in. OMG! The actual view was breathtaking.

More on this as I try to enhance the images properly.

All images are © 2005 Dax Pandhi. All rights reserved. Permission for usage in personal or commerical projects can be requested by e-mail.

I finally passed the 3000 line on my FujiFilm S7000 Camera. Of course, I might have deleted about 500 pics from the bunch, but still - I took 3000 pictures!! And this was in a matter of about 3 months. I'm averaging a thousand pics a month, and dual layer DVDs are not enough!!!

Well, I'll finally be able to post a big update on Pixelated Focus when I do a major revamp - new site opens on June 17th (my birthday, thank you).

After 10 days of unbearable pain of not being able to witness the end of the Saga as almost everyone else I knew already had, I finally saw Revenge of the Sith. I can now die without regret.

At the end of it all, it somehow felt "good". Even though the entire galaxy plummets towards total darkness, with every being fearing the shadow of the white armor, it still felt GOOD!

Here's a list of my fave things from RotS:

I just loved the intense 'Vapaad' style fight between Windu and Palpatine. You can see Windu edging into his natural anger caused of Vapaad.

The nostalgic command from the Wing Leader, "Lock S-Foils in attack position", and the wookie howl.

The drop Yoda makes near the end after his failure - so reminiscent of Luke's exit on the Cloud City on Bespin.

Palpatine's Force Lightning.

Both Jedi Heroes did good acting this time. I just LOVED Obi-Wan's more natural personality. Ewan McGregor did a heck of a job. Even Hayden Christensen's Vader-mode was cool. The anger in his voice was scary. Natalie Portman's acting abilities were also nicely explored. But the best acting had to be a tie with Yoda (animators/Frank Oz) and Palpy (Ian McDiarmid).

The whole film was like a full mirror of Return of the Jedi. The Apprentice vs Jedi fight with the Emperor watching in a grand seat. The immense space battle. The appendage chopping. Vader's creation as opposed to Vader's redemption.

Some things that were in the novelization were not included in the film, but SHOULD'VE BEEN:

Commander Cody (the clone commander who goes with Obi-Wan on the Greivous mission on Utupal) gives Obi-Wan his lightsaber back, and as Obi-Wan goes away he gets Order 66 from Palpy, and then after Palpy's holo vanishes, he says "you could've given the order BEFORE I gave him his lightsaber back!". And when Obi-Wan loses his lightsaber when chasing the droid general, he says "Anakin will never let live in peace if he finds out" - or something to that effect.

But the thing they REALLY should've added was Yoda talking with the ghostly image of Qui-Gon Jinn before Bail Organa interrupts his meditiation near the end. And this is the REAL conversation Yoda and Obi-Wan have in the end:

Yoda: In your solitude on Tatooine, training I have for you. I and my new Master."

Obi-Wan: Your new Master?

Yoda: Yes. (Smiles) And your old one...

 

The Swamp troops (the clones in green/silver on Kash'yyk) had the best armor.

Sigh ... I gotta go now ... I will keep writing my comments about RotS and its comparison to RotJ later (like you can stop me!).

I've always been fascinated and frightened of death - any form of "end". Personal death - my own death - would be a fascinating thing - hell, it would be an adventure (uhm, that "hell" was an exclamation, because I don't believe in hell [or heaven]- mostly because if I did that is where I'd be going).

For the past couple of years everything started ending. The sitcoms I always watched started ending one by one, the eternal sagas come to an end. I left the house where I spent the majority of my life until 2003. Frodo had to leave the Shire and go into the West. Will Riker went onto his own command, Data died. Anakin became Vader, Padme died. In the EU, Chewbacca, Anakin Solo, Admiral Ackbar, Ganner Rhysode, Wurth Skidder, Elogos A'kla, even Nom Anor died. Tahiri, Danni and other went away into the Unknown Regions with Zonama Sekot. And good TV (whatever was left of it) is dying with the so-called reality shows.

One big fear of mine has been the underdog I've been supporting and fighting for is now nearing it's end. In the last few years, Corel Corporation (www.corel.com) has been taken over more times than the middle eastern governments. Since v1.0, I've been a die hard CorelDRAW fan. Later on when Corel PhotoPaint was brought on, it became the most used software on my computer(s). For over 14 years, this is one software I've been using.

Now, I hear that there WON'T be a version 13. PhotoPaint has (finally) fallen behind Photoshop. In it's youth, Corel PhotoPaint (CPT) was what Photoshop copied features from! Now, PhotoShop CS2 is coming up with amazing features. For the past 3 years, this fear has been hanging over me like a sword. But I kept on pushing, knowing Corel will bring in one more version with some rocking features that will crush PS. And for the past 3 years, Corel has been disappointing me. Sure, they've added some cool features, but not ENOUGH.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a fiercly loyal to my friends and allies. And now like Anakin Skywalker, I'm being seduced by the Palpatine analog called Corel Painter IX. I've started shifting my painting creation from CPT to PIX. And I'm beginning to become loyal to it. It's no biggie - it's a COREL product (tho not originally). And it does have cool functionality. It still doesn't support ALL the cool things PhotoPaint can do, but... oh well. I'm still going to use both mediums.

But the deeper fear is that if there is no new version Corel PhotoPaint, I will need to switch to Photoshop. Photoshop with its undocked windows, and missing tools (hey, CPT STILL has tools PS doesn't!). I still pray to the Force that Corel has enough sense to create a new version with killer features. But what if it doesn't. Despair! I despair. Even though I know that despair leads to fear, and fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to anger, and anger leads to the Dark Side! Oh Force, are you with me still? Does the Light Side still hold sway?

I fear the day when I cannot get a new version of PhotoPaint, and I'll have to leave it's beautiful customizable VBA architecture and embrace the Yuuzhan Vong software called Photoshop. Padme will die, hundreds of Padawans will die, and I will be using Photoshop!

Jedi Master C'arl Fran'klin has written an AMAZING blog post. You just HAVE to read it.

http://weblogs.asp.net/cfranklin/archive/2005/05/19.aspx 

Amazing. Simply amazing.

I was archiving some old files and found this picture of Dr. J. J. Rawal, a renowned astrophysicist, and the former Director of the Nehru Space Institute, current director of the Indian Planetary Society. He's also an advisor at the Indian analog of NASA.

This picture was taken sometime in 2004 at my father's office. Dr. Rawal is a friend of Dad's. I really enjoyed the brief chat I had with him. He was kind enough to invite me to participate in the new meteorological research center they are soon going to establish in my town.

I desperately needed a vacation. I was on the verge of nervous breakdown. But there was just too much work that needed my attention. So, I decided to fill in the gaps in my Star Wars reading and read the entire New Jedi Order series from Book 1. Now, this is a series of 21 books, and my total count of Star Wars novels read has been about 75+.

So, I read 10 books in the last week. I intend to finish the rest this week or the next. I even read EPISODE III: Revenge of the Sith - the official novelization. Damn, I can't wait to see the movie. Go see it!

Some time back, I was on a similar Star Wars kick (I'm ALWAYS on a Star Wars kick, this one was a spike in the normal pattern) and I watched all 5 movies back-to-back. After watching the movie I got into a fight with a Penguin-lover (Linux user! This isn't beastiality!) about Microsoft being the Dark Side of the Force. Being a Microsoft-lover, I just couldn't help but kick his ass.

Later, I was inspired to do a vector-sketch. I wonder if Bill Gates' midi-chlorian count is higher than Anakin's. Hmmm.

 

This is my tribute to Genndy Tartakovsky's genius.

If you Penguin-lovers are thinking that Linux's fate shall be that of Luke Skywalker, yes, you may lose a hand (or wing) or whatever, but defeat the Dark Side, you shall not. Size does matter.

If you've visited my blog before (thank you!) you might notice the look has changed. Astute observation.

If you've known me for more than 48 hours, you would probably know that I'm a cipheractive (a hyperactive person who works in mysterious, cryptic ways) and I often end up revamping something or the other to exhaust the build up of excess creativity in my so-called brain.

And yes, that picture above is a painting I recently made on my tablet. And no, that's not me - I'm the sleepy-eyed idiot on the right.

I've decided to let go of AFTER-IMAGES.net. It has been a good ride, but some things must end. I've stopped painting for some time now, and I don't think I want an exclusive art exhibit online anymore. I'll probably fuse the existing collections at Pixelated Focus.

If anyone wants this domain, just mail me and I'll *give* it to you. Well, not free, but at a token price of US$12. That's what I paid for registration a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... :)

I've been waiting for a long time to actually show off my bike! This is where I REALLY start liking having my own blog. :)

This baby is a 150cc, 3-stroke, 5 gear Bajaj PULSAR. I call it the "Pulsar Skate", named after Mirax Terrik's cargo freighter, so the naming credit goes to Michael A. Stackpole.

The Skate still gives me about 70km per litre, and it has run just over 9000 kilometers. I don't go into town frequently. I live close to the hills, and I often go there for hiking and photography.

I've been waiting to customize it, but it keeps getting delayed. If nothing else, I'm going to put those warning stripes in the central and aft body "recesses" - the two long bevels.

The Skate weighs exactly 267 kilograms, which is about 3 average human males combined! It's a drag (no pun intended) when I have to drag it for about 12 kilometers from the hills back to town when I get a flat! It can top at about 120kmph, tho I haven't dared take it beyond 100. And that's only coz there were potholes the size of the Grand Canyon. Wait till I go on the national highway.

Finally found the time to upload another batch of photos taken on my FujiFilm S7000. I made a couple of trips to the hills a few days ago, breaking my 11 day hermitage (I never went out of my house/office for almost 2 weeks!).

There are some new interesting super macro shots, as well as some "wild life" shots, and one of Dad being plain ol' silly. :)

Check it out: http://www.pixelatedfocus.com

(it's Sprite® in a glass, if you can't guess)

I've been involved in a project called PWOPCaster with Carl Franklin of PWOP Productions Inc (www.pwop.com) and of .NET ROCKS fame (www.dotnetrocks.com). This is a very cool new podcasting client with a great content delivery system. You can find out more at Carl's blog:

http://weblogs.asp.net/cfranklin/archive/2005/04/19.aspx 

I've been involved in the graphics/UI side of things as well as the designing of Pwop.com. Now, okay, so we're not going to talk about this until it's all done, but I can tell you this - it has been some of my best work - and the functionality these guys have written in is FANTASTIC. Keep listening to .NET ROCKS or MONDAYS (http://mondays.pwop.com) and you'll be the first to get the beta.

If you're into .NET, you will like to know that his one of the best pieces of managed code apps out there! It'll be very interesting.

I feel old writing this. I really do. I always thought of myself as one of the "young dudes". Guess that's not true anymore. It has now officially been more than 10 whole years of being out in the professional world. I started working on the side when I was in school (6th grade, I think) in 1995 - teaching a class once a week about Autodesk Animator Pro and Autodesk 3D Studio 2.0 (we're talking days of 3D in DOS!). Then went on to freelancing, teaching programming, and eventually in 1998 ended up founding Atomic Diaper Productions which was quickly and thankfully changed to NUKEATION Studios - www.nukeation.com - and is the same place I have been since.

When you do a decade of graphics, there are statistics - impressive statistics - and here they are:

Pixels pushed on official jobs:           2,638,400,000+

Pixels pushed on personal stuff:      38,910,580,000+

Pixels pushed on volunteer work:      1,900,000,000+

And it all comes down to -              43,448,980,000+

And I'm not even counting the 3D stuff I've done - nor the vectors coz they dont HAVE pixels. Anyways, it's times like this when you want to reflect on all you have done, and all you want to do. And you also want to give credit where credit it due. So, Jessica, Michael, Dana - my old animation gang; Heeren (www.fissionvector.com), Aoi, Tim, and everyone else who is working or has worked with Nukeation, thank you for making my pixels more shiny. :)