This is awesome ! Sony again

This comes right from my mobile to my main blog :-) love it !

Voila ! Sony rocks

My first blog entry right from my sony k800i.

The lord of forest - A trip to the great SABAREESAN

I post this with great satisaction and pain.....:) Satisfaction for my inner self and pain for my body :)

Work...work....work :(

Missed all the previous months postings...was really into some hefty schedules and want to continue this passion forward ;) Not in a mood for a pretty lengthy post now....but yes will be back shortly after a small hibernation ;)

Knowing CSS based Javascript dropdown more closer than before

Hi all, It took me so long to write this piece of blog. Busy with some personal issues and official work, this month is turning out to be a pretty hectic and troublesome for me. But there are also something to be happy about. The gud thing is that ive been learning some new things and they are really gonna be handy for me in the future. Of those i would be sharing a professional experience here now :) Pretty lately im involved in a project that demands me of some site development profile and that too in a language that i hated the most once upon a time in my beginning of career - oh yeah im talking about the scripting language JS :) Javascript is the talk of the town for me for the last couple of weeks... Now coming to the technical point, a CSS based javascript dropdown is the topic of the day. Have been researching on the various options and got zeroed into a dropdown suggested by a senior fellow designer. The script is from 'Suckerfish' and this was pretty much we were luking for. Now the implementation of this one is the challenge placed before me and right now im in the process of implementing it into the application interface of our project. This menu is basically based on a UL LI css list menu and the javascript makes use of the same to display it as a dropdown menu using the ID and by attaching relevant events to the page while loading. There is an important thing that needs to be kept in mind, while using such dropdowns in extensive projects with numerous menu items. Sicne these sort of menus make use of the cpu memory by attaching the events, using such menus in projects with lots of menu items may prove fatal some times. The more the menu items the more will be the cpu usage while loading. So, going with scripts that attaches very less no. of events are preferable. Suckerfish is such a menu component that can come handy for such situations. Will post more technical details once im done with this task of implementing this menu in my application interface.

My WP down for the moment :(

With some hectic work and frequent visit to my home, i was kept at bay from the blogging phobia for almost a month now. Wordpress blog of mine is down at the moment as i there are some server maintenance going on. Hoping to return with a loads of new informative and interesting stuff :) Hang on my friends !

Moving from blogger to Wordpress !

Having setup my wordpress account, now it is time to transfer all the posts here in blogger to WP. Thats wat im after all these days. After googling the topic i found out some interesting topics and im sharing them here... Backing up blogger posts

• Backup Your Posts - Bloggers Blogsend allows each of my blog posts to be automatically sent to my email address. So I have a back up of all my posts as individual emails. You can further create folders in your email account (as in Yahoo Mail) or apply labels (in Gmail), and create filters such that such emails can be collected in one place.
• Back up your entire blogger blog - Bloggers provides detailed instructions to create a single file with all your posts which you may publish and then copy to your own computer for use as desired. Remember to save a copy of your existing template in a file on your computer as you will need to have it at hand after this process is completed. This is good for a one time backup, but is cumbersome to do if you back up very frequently. Also you might mess up some setting and disbale your blog is not done right.
• Try third party back up tools - like the HTTrack Web site copier for Windows users and Webgrabber for Mac users. Each of these applications will create a fully working, interlinked local copy of your blog for browsing offline and easily allow you to back up. Remember it will take considerable time and internet bandwidth if you have a huge blog.

Transferring content from blogger to WP Settings in Blogger I just ensured that some settings were inspired from different feedbacks I read elsewhere. Before doing anything, back up your Blogger blog first.

Click Formatting and change the Timestamp Format to be mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM (the first choice in the dropdown menu). Click Archiving and set Archive Frequency to ‘monthly’ These settings are already set in Blogger by default. I already had these settings in my blog anyway, so effectively I made no change my Blogger settings.

Settings in WP Login into Wordpress. Go to Import. Click on Blogger - “Import posts and comments from a Blogger account”. Fill in your blogger username and password.

It will list all your blogger blogs as you see on the Blogger dashboard. Click on the blog you want to move to Wordpress. And the Import will start automatically. Time taken will depend on how large your blog is. It took me a 2-3 minutes for a 1000 posts.

Remember, do not stop, reload or restart while the process is going on. It seems at times that the importing process is stuck, but it is continuing in the background. After all is done, it will tell you it is done and you can ‘Move on”…

If for some reason things get stuck, you can “reset the importer”. View your new Wordpress blog manage and see all your posts and comments are imported.

If you install Wordpress in a subdirectory instead of the root of your domain, read all about hosting Wordpress in an alternative directory.

Time to move on to WORDPRESS...bye bye blogspot ;)

Im moving...........hurray!! Im moving from blogspot shortly. Having setup my wordpress blog in my own domain, im moving from blogspot and nowon lets meet all in my own world in wordpress :) Btw, i plan to hang around here for some time, till i completely set my blog up. Wait for a post announcing mysticpixels' bradn new blog up and running ! Cheers!

Its recharge time !

Its time for a recharge, and no other time suits other than this weekend ! Now posting this blog from chennai, im under recharge mode :) Here for a period of 3 days with my friends, im all ready for a complete recharge. Time spent enjoying the beautiful things around me, its a different experience. This being my first trip to this city adds to the joy. Looking forward to post some snaps that ill be taking along the way into my flickr account shortly. Learning to cope up with the pressure and maintain the work-life balance slowly. A long way to go in my career, this will be a good launch pad to withstand hard times to come. Cmon.....lets chill out pals ;)

Street Photography - Tips

Have been peeping into some photography tips and forums related to photography and came across this pretty interesting thread about photographing street scenes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Courtesy - Andy, from Dgrin forum for photography ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- street photography tips

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there's a lot that goes into successful street photography. i'll try to open up a few subjects, and let's discuss... awareness/focus i'm in a zone when i street shoot. i'm looking for slices of life, expressive moments, odd juxtapositions, funny scenes, interesting people. i'm totally focused on the scene, i'm part of it as i'm walking through it. constantly watching, looking, peering, seeing. imo you cannot "street shoot" in 15 minutes. for me, it takes me a while to get in the zone, and then once there, i hope for the best - i've said it before that we make our own luck by being there. others have said "f/8 and be there!" -- same concept. so when i'm in the zone, i hope that i find some of the above criteria met - and i usually do, but some days i have to look harder than others. make mental note as you ply your streets... i have posted here before that there's a shot i'd been wanting for months, but i was never near this "standpipe" when someone was sitting on it... well, patience paid off and i got this: what makes this shot for me, is the indifference of the subject (hey, i'm just sittin' here, reading my newspaper...), his reflection, and the reflection of the cab. and of course, the irony of the "sitting" on the "stand" pipe.... people in context people shots are great, and i live for my street portraits. i really try to put people in context. so, rather than tight up to the cab driver, i waited weeks to find the right cabby (facial and other "attitude" character), the right light, and the right scene (again, i had this shot in my mental inventory before i even took it: what works for me here is the fairly wide angle view of the street, the cab and the waldorf-astoria... and the absolute cooperation of the subject. i simply told him "hey, you look great, may i take your photograph? this was a one-shot-shoot, i popped in a little fill flash to get some twinkle, chatted him up a bit, asked him his name (henri), shot, smiled, thanked him, gave him my card and was on my way all in less than a minute. more "in context" and one of my favorite street portraits, is the "suit seller" who actually approached me first trying to lure me inside the men's store to buy a suit... i stopped, did a button-hook, and went right up to him... "hey, you look great here, in front of your store like this, may i take your photograph?" again, what works for me here is the absolute clarity of subject/environment, it's clear that he's in front of men's clothes for sale. i adore his expression, and his eyes. this shot is on my wall. in this gallery you'll find many more examples of people in context. take a look at the chess players, for an example of some street people that i spent quite a bit of time with, they became comfortable with me, and i shot them up without disturbing their games. confidence street shooting requires confidence.. *you* are doing nothing wrong, so don't sneak around! put away that tele, and stick a fifty or thirty-five on your dslr, or set your digicam's zoom to the wider end of things, and see the scene "normally," up close and personaly. this may be strange for some of you, but i assure you it gets easier after your initial trepidation wears off. the worst that can happen is people say "no, i don't want my photo taken," and so you smile and move on! the wider angles offer so much more to the viewer imo, that they're worth the extra effort in becoming more comfortable ... readiness learn your camera's controls, shoot in a way that let's you shoot quickly! i'm always pre-set for the most part (choice of iso, aperture) and i typically shoot in aperture priority mode. i also learn the hyperfocal distances of my lenses, so that i can shoot comfortable within a distance range. watch the lighting, which can change by 8 or 9 stops just by turning a corner! it's really important to have all your senses focused on the job at hand. maybe that's why i have to stop for food and starbucks so much attitude if you have a confident attitude, learn your camera inside and out, focus on the lighting, the scenes, have a mental inventory of shots you want, put people in context, show an interest in your subjects, and work swiftly and politely, you'll be rewarded with good people shots and street photos. enjoy (street) photography,

Microsoft seeks help of flickr user !

Ever imagined where the dazzling wallpapers and cool scenaries in Windows Vista come from. Well i wouldnt have believed it untill i came across this posting in a news site. MS have approached a flickr user Hamad Darwish, for either use of his photos or commissioned to create new images for the desktop backgrounds that are included in the new Windows Vista operating system. Get detailed story from http://dsphotographic.com/index.php/2007/02/...

The pain of rejection...

Its been quite some time ive posted something. Was pretty busy with a design contest. A intranet portal design contest for the company i work for, infact. We worked for a week, inspite of our late start, and managed to come up with a pretty appealing interface with some feasible ideas in it. Expectations...expectations....expectations...I realised that it is the single way to distress :( We expected our design to get through the first round and were waiting for the second round. But to our shock, we couldnt even find a place in the top 9 list :(. Hard luck for the team and the morale was dropping. But, recovering pretty fast from this tragedy, we have some plans and we ll implement it in times to come. Watch out for some hot news from mysticpixels !

Computing is getting too personal - MOJOPAC has arrived :)

Moving around places and missing all the softwares and environments in your PC back home, has been a pain for most of the software professionals. Being a designer ive felt that pain whenever i travel out where i dont have access to the sort of softwares that i have at my PC @ home. There seems to be an end for this trivia. I just came across an interesting software that is offering solutions that enables you to carry around all the softwares and environment as it is in your PC, and work in any other PC with the same set of s/w, without even installing the softwares in the new PC. Im talking about "Mojopac". Get to know this new technology... MOJOPAC

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 complaint storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.

Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.