What is VSTO ?

VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office) means that you are using Visual Studio to develop application using COM objects for MS Office (known as PIA).

Check out the official site.

What is the confusion ?

Due to VBA (Visual Basic for Application). Most of us are familiar with the term VBA, because most of us are familiar with MS Office and Macro.

How different from VBA ?

It is different in a sense that in the context of VSTO, you can find extended functions, methods and properties for the COM objects.

These extensions are known as aggregates.

Why the big fuss then ?

Because COM objects are COM and not part of the .NET framework.

To start with, get a good eBook and download sample code (VB.NET Visual Studio 2008 SP1)

Juniper Networks and Nokia Siemens Networks Win InfoVision Award for Combined Metro Technologies and Services Solution

Juniper Networks, Inc., the leader in high-performance networking, today announced that Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper have won the Metro Network Technologies and Services award with the solution to be produced by their joint venture. The joint award was presented at the recent InfoVision awards ceremony during Broadband World Forum in Paris. The award recognizes the Carrier Ethernet Solution for mobile and fixed residential and business subscribers.

Check out details.

Adobe Unveils Photoshop Elements 8 & Premiere Elements 8 Bundle

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the highly anticipated new versions of the No. 1 selling consumer photo- and video-editing software, Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere® Elements 8 for Windows®, and Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8 software for Mac.

Available as standalone products or as a single retail package, the Windows bundle offers the most complete photo and video solution by seamlessly integrating two powerful, yet easy-to-use, products. Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 software for Windows is available now at www.adobe.com.

The bundle is available for US$149.99.

Both Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8 software for Windows are available separately for US$99.99. Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac® also will be available for US$99.99, in October 2009.

Check out the details.

Adobe Flash Platform Services Unveiled

With the growth of social media, advertisers and publishers are looking for more predictability and effectiveness in reaching audiences via social media.

While there are many benefits to using sharable, social applications to connect with customers; however, it can be difficult to get users to install the applications.

Advertisers, publishers and game developers use distribution methods that don’t support all popular destinations and can be difficult to maintain. Many times, simply posting applications in an app store is the mobile distribution strategy. Rarely is an overall distribution strategy unified across the Web and mobile, making comprehensive analytics difficult to obtain.

Adobe Systems has announced the availability of a new service that enables advertisers and content publishers to promote, measure and monetize applications across social networks, desktops and mobile devices: Adobe® Flash® Platform Services for Distribution,

Adobe Flash Platform Services are online, hosted services that allow developers to add innovative capabilities to Web applications with a predictable, cost efficient deployment model. Developers, advertisers and publishers are now using Adobe Flash Platform Services to make Web applications sharable, social, and collaborative.

An example of the distribution service in action, is The WSJ Radio Network – which provides audio business news reports and programs to more than 370 radio stations across the country and reaches more than 22 million listeners per week.

They will provide network affiliates with new business news Web tools for use on their own sites as well as for individual use. The new widget will offer content from WSJ Radio and WSJ.com, including podcasts, live audio business news updates from The Wall Street Journal Report and The Dow Jones Money Report, as well as updated headlines and video, and will be available for users to view and share via social networking sites and blogs.

Check out details.

Surviving the Corporate World While Drifting On The Web

When you are a startup, you should sell cheap for two reasons:

1. Product is new
   
2. Your cost is still low. This will kill away the bigger players with a lot of resources but requirements for high profit margins.
   

Basically, at this point of time, your competitors are those big companies with a lot of resources. Thus, if the problem that you are trying to solve is a solid one, then they are interested. Sell to corporate is a good idea. Try to just sell to a few big corporates so that you don't have to worry about support so much, as well as liaison. But the problem with corporate sales is that it depends on trends, because corporate sales is dependent on budget. This is so oblivious from the case of Apple iphone, Google free software and etc. They are all trying to build a brand into the corporate world, which Microsoft is still pretty much a monopoly. Same thing goes to Sun Microsystem, who has been working hard to create trends for the following areas:

• Open source
  
• ZFS
  
• Identity Management
  
• Cloud Computing

You have to create a trend and the only faster way is through the web.

However, about the web, there is an equally tasking challenge, which is to have "the need for speed". See, as we mentioned, for corporate sales, there is a culture. The big guys will set the trend, and corporate will slowly adopt it, it will all spawn from the USA. The new tech adoption rate in Malaysia is about 5 years behind, this is actually a good thing for local vendors; you got time to plan for it.

For the web, everybody levels across the world. If Americans are using the latest Windows Live Messenger, Malaysians are too.

This is the game which Google is gamed at and is better at compared to Microsoft.

Apple Special Event Sep 09 (Music)

This came quite late, the reason is that the streaming that I had have always been subjected to interruptions.

It is always interesting to take note of Apple's special events to see where they are up to and how they keep the industry, consumers and technology.

Check out the link while still available.

Overview:

• 30 Million iphone sold Sep 2009.
  
• Driven by apps store (1 year old)
  
• 75,000 apps.
  
• User have downloaded 1.8 billion apps have been downloaded since.
  
• iPhone software 3.1
  
• 100 million accounts

iTunes 9

1. Genius mixes
2. Improved Syncing
   
3. Home sharing
   
4. Redesign store
   
5. iTunes LP

iPod:

1. 73.8% market share.
   
2. >50% of customers are new customers
   
3. 20 millions of iPod touches have been sold.
   

why ?

1. It is a great iPod (video and audio)
   
2. It is a mini computer
   
3. Gaming platform. --> 20,000 games titles available.

iPod Touch:

1. 8GB for $199
   
2. 50% faster
   
3. OpenGL ES
   

Video Camera in the iPod Nano:

This is pretty exciting, as Steve described it as "Tiny little package, having video camera and always having your iPod Nano with you."

100 millions of iPod Nano has been sold.

1. Video camera
   
2. Larger 2.2 inch display
   
3. Polished anodized aluminium
   
4. Microphone and speaker
   
5. VoiceOver
   
6. FM Radio
   
7. Built-in pedometer
   
8. 8GB for $149

Green Concept:

1. Arsenic-Free glass
   
2. NPN-Free
   
3. Mercury-Free
   
4. PVC-Free
   
5. Highly Recyclable

Conclusion:

1. New iTunes 9
   
2. New iPod lineups for the holiday season.
   
3. New iPod Nano with built-in video camera

And the best part is that after watching the keynote, I actually thought that I wanted to get an iPod Nano because I am actually looking for a good quality small video camera.

The marketing is effective!

Check Out The Daily Reviewer

The Daily Reviewer gives you the best voted blogs by the reviewer.

I am proud to say that they have listed IT-Sideways as one of the top Malaysia's blog.

Check out this page.


Make no mistake, this may not last (just like PageRank), I just want to take a moment thank all contributors and most importantly the readers.

Thank you thank you!

Happy blogging.

Adobe Expands Scene7 Services into Asia Pacific

Image via CrunchBase

Adobe Systems announced it is introducing Adobe® Scene7® services into the Asia Pacific market. Adobe Scene7 is the leading hosted rich media platform for e-commerce and multi-channel marketing companies that are publishing content to drive online business. As part of the expansion, Adobe has established a sales organization and customer support resources in Japan and a new data center in Singapore to ensure optimized dynamic media services for the APAC market.

Business-to-consumer e-commerce sales for the five major markets in the region – Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and China – totaled $73.3 billion in 2007, with 62.3 percent coming from Japan. Industry analysts forecast APAC online sales will continue to grow at a 23.3 percent annual rate reaching $168.7 billion by 2011.

By using the Adobe Scene7 platform, companies serving the APAC markets will now have local access to cross-media publishing on the Web, via e-mail, in print or on mobile devices to help their businesses grow faster. Adobe Scene7 hosted solutions allow the automation of cross-media management, enabling users to streamline online images, reducing volume by up to 80 percent and potentially cut photography costs in half. Customers have experienced up to a 90 percent increase in sales across all channels as well as doubling conversion rates, while reducing returns by over 10 percent.

Check out details.

Pull Out Your Holler; It's Hailer

Hailer is a startup.

Basically what Hailer is providing is a facility to send (or broadcast) messages (stories) to followers. Remember, it is followers, not strangers.

It works in a manner which both the broadcasters and followers or better known as subscribers must also create an account with Hailer for free. In order to broadcast messages to followers, broadcasters must first acquire tokens. So, if in Malaysia, receiving SMS will not cost you anything right ? Therefore, there is nothing to lose by subscribing to any broadcasters depending on your topic of interests.

For instance, bloggers can update followers with latest feeds.

Police chief can updates his men about latest tips and etc.

It is quite similar to Twitter, except that there are two differentiators:

1. Localized
2. SMS based.

Hailer is a Malaysian company and it is licensed by MCMC.

It also provides API for development.

Currently, Hailer is having promotions for retailers.

With an investment of just RM 990, you can acquire for yourself, a solution which blends a mixture of marketing and CRM. The package offers either:

Option A:

• Registration of Hailer Account
  
• Bunting(with custom designed) - 2 pieces
  
• A5 sized standees (with custom designed) - 20 pieces
  
• Tokens (500 sms worth of credits) - 6000 tokens.

Option B:

• Registration of Hailer Account
  
• Bunting(with custom designed) - 7 pieces
  
• A5 sized standees (with custom designed) - 20 pieces
  
• Tokens (500 sms worth of credits) - 6000 tokens.
  

Plus:

• 3 Months Free of Charge follow up on Report of Hailer Channel.
  
• Bi-weekly follow up on status and presentation of ideas to use to generate followings
  
• Free of charge Plug-in to website.

At this moment, Hailer service will only work with Maxis network. DiGi? and Celcom will follow suit soon.

And don't forget, visit the web site to see a sea of Hailer's stories.

Send email to team@it-sideways.com if you wanted to subscribe to become broadcaster.

Juniper Networks Extends #1 Market Leadership of E Series Broadband Service Router with New Feature Portfolio

Juniper Networks, the leader in high-performance networking, announced new features on the E Series Broadband Service Router, including a new advanced line module which doubles per-slot subscriber density, and multiple IPv6 features. The E Series has become the industry’s most widely deployed broadband network gateway, and Juniper has maintained leading market share of the Broadband Remote Access market for the past six consecutive quarters, growing to 48 percent revenue market share in the second quarter of 2009.

Broadband networking has evolved from basic connectivity and capacity to include high-level Quality of Service for video and interactive services, and IPv6 for mobile and video applications. Broadband service adoption is now fueled by increasing demand for sophisticated bundles of multi-play services, media rich content and interactive applications such as online gaming, which in turn, is driving service providers to seek broadband edge solutions that efficiently provide high performance and scale.

Check out details.

VB.NET Remoting ASP.NET Client

Refer to the earlier version...

Now, for this version, we try to send objects over to the server from a desktop client and also ASP.NET client.



Take note that if you are passing over objects, you have to create custom IFormatterSinkProvider object for both client and server, using the extended constructor of the HttpChannel or TcpChannel.

Download the sample code (VB.NET Visual Studio 2008 SP1)

Adobe Announces 2009 Asia Pacific School Innovation Awards

Adobe Systems announced that starting today, September 15, 2009, the company will begin accepting submissions for the first Adobe® Asia Pacific School Innovation Awards, open to all 14-19 year old students in Malaysia, as well as a number of other countries in the region. The competition is designed to provide a platform for the brightest young creative minds in the region to display their talents to a wide audience as well as a chance to gain recognition and win attractive awards.

Adobe will begin accepting submissions online starting today, September 15, 2009. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2009. Winners will be announced before January 31, 2010 and notified via email. For more information about categories, prizes and entry requirements, see the official rules at http://www.adobe-eduapac.com/award.

Check out details.

Adobe Unveils Adobe Flash Access 2.0

Flash Access 2.0, previously known as Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server, is a scalable, flexible content protection solution that enables the distribution and monetization of premium content, which can create new sources of revenue for media publishers.

Check out details.

Juniper Networks and Nokia Siemens Networks Receive Regulatory Approval for Carrier Ethernet Joint Venture

Juniper Networks and NSN Receive Regulatory Approval for Carrier Ethernet Joint Venture.

Check out details.

No Internet Cencorship... That's Good

Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has once again reaffirmed the society and the world that Malaysia will not resort to Internet censorship.

The Prime Minister reassures that this country has adults who should take responsibilities for themselves, and do not blame the government for every single mishaps happening around Malaysia. I totally agree.

In fact, my suggestion to Internet censorship advocates is that if you don't like something, don't watch it. That is simple.

Looks good, now we are in the right mood towards Selamat Hari Raya.

There Is A Trend Showing Out of The PCA Here!!

As we have discussed that Video Analytics is on the rise and still relatively new.

A good way to find out what others are doing with regards to detection and recognition technologies is to see what customers wanted to solve. and to achieve this, we can check out job requests from rentacoder.com

Most of the requests revolve around the following mentioned techniques to achieve desirable results:

• Mathlab
  
• Principle Component Analysis
  
• Pictometry API
  
• OCROpus
  
• Neural-network (backpropagation and quickprop algorithm)
  
• OpenCV
  
• Libface

There is a trend showing out of the PCA (Principal Component Analysis) here!!

As you can see that the biggest challenge of image recognition or just any kind of detection, recognition technology is that developing from a top-down approach is simply quite impossible due to a few reasons:

1. The scope is too big and fairly undefined.
   
2. The time-frame is too vague
   
3. The risk is simply quite unpredictable

Therefore, human beings are currently resorted to doing the bottom-up approach (based on specific problems). For instance:

1. Video analytics is a problem and has many sub problems (intrusion detection, behaviour analytics, object detection and etc).
   
2. Image recognition is a problem and has many sub problems (facial recognition, license plate recognition and etc).

And each of these problems requires intelligence and the sum of solutions to all these problems results in the formation of a subset of artificial intelligence.

This trend is more economical and the race is on for those who can edge over others by the doings of:

1. Making money and surviving out of providing solutions for specific problems.
   
2. Producing technologies which are more generic and can be applicable to other problems.
   
3. Software architecture which caters for modularity and scalability.

Conclusion:

Start with a specific problem and sell the technology. If there is no market for it, you might want to consider changing to a new problem by reusing the same works that you have done.

A Short Review on Video Analytics

Video Analytics is still new...

Intelligence ?

• Computer vision --> input
  
• Metadata generation --> ontology
  
• Objects identification --> Definition

--> www.asmag.com May/June 2008 pg 76.

Current trend ?

Colors identification (based on color of the dresses)

In fact, if you look at the latest happenings, the following features are already available to the market.

• Pro active video surveillance --> object identification
  
• Behaviour recognition
  
• People and vehicle counting

Problems with the industry ?

• Products come from everywhere.
  
• Competition is high
  
• Manufacturers have no time to start from scratch, too costly and too many things to do.
  
• Transition from analog to digital

It is not easy to create a product, you got to start from somewhere.

But I like to think that the biggest challenge is face recognition, or in a broader sense, image recognition.

There is a recent news that image recognition is solved, a research success by MobVis.

and the more famous face recognition software iPhoto was made popular by Apple not too long ago.

Well, if you look at how iPhoto works, it suggests that:

• Uses geometry
• Uses statistics

IT-Sideways Is All About Sincerity and Sharing

What is IT-Sideways all about ?

IT-Sideways' activity is to contribute content to fuel the Internet.

IT-Sideways is all about sincerity and sharing.

Collection Vs Hashtable (VB.NET )

Referring to System.Collections.Hashtable and Microsoft.Visualbasic.Collection

• Collection - non case-sensitive string pattern (that is why it supports string as key)
  
• Hashtable - specific index key (that is why it supports object as key and not string as key)

• Hashtable - for accurate and fast return of item using the key
  
• Collection - for lesser accurate (based on non-case sensitive string pattern) and slower return of item using the key.

Conclusion:

• Hashtable - used for lookup purposes with distinctive key searching facility.
  
• Collection - used for storing a growing collection of items with non case-sensitive string pattern (key) searching facility.

Please download the sample code (VB.NET Visual Studio 2008 SP1)

Comparison of Tech Blog and Conventional News Provider

The Pros of Tech Blog:

1. Focus
2. Your News Are Always on Front Page
3. Tech Blog Include Links to Your Web Sites And Other Links
4. Tech Blogs Know What It Is Talking
5. Tech Blogs Provide Examples
6. Tech Blogs Archive Stuffs - Content Repository
7. Tech Blogs Are Searchable Through Search Engines
8. Tech Blogs Usually Protect Your Concerns and Cushion Conflicting-Issues
9. Tech Blogs are Fun and Happy

The Pros of Conventional News Provider:

1. More Established
2. Printed
3. More Readers (as the total)
4. On-Site Journalists
5. Politically Correct

You must know how to leverage on these two medias to your benefits. Don't ever think about manipulations, think about win-win for all parties.

Tech Blog Malaysia Statistics (Aug 09)

As usual, check out the analysis for 2008.
For month of Jan 2009.
For month of Feb 2009.
For month of Mar 2009.
For month of April 2009.
For month of May 2009.
For month of Jun 2009
For month of July 2009

For Aug 2009, we have the followings:

1. A Company Providing HAPS Technology
2. The brand of This Blog
3. A Malaysia Edutainment Portal
4. Network Routing Protocols' Comparison
5. World Largest EPR Software Brand
6. Support Number for Malaysia's Largest Broadband Provider
7. Malaysia's Portal for World No.1 Music Store
8. Malaysia Internet Services
9. Software for Blog Auditing
10. A Crystal Report 8.5 Problem

Overview:

• Total monthly traffic decreased by as much as 7.5%
  
• Traffic from referring sites increased by 1.82%
  
• Google still top contributor (60.80%). Up from last month.
  
• Top 5 countries (Malaysia, US, UK, India, Singapore). Check out here.
  
• New visitors 83.91% (down from last month).

My Comments:

Sometimes it really intrigues me that Malaysia's ICT companies are not very concern with the power of branding and marketing. If you look at all these collections of statistics, it proves that many campaigns are left without any follow-up or whatsoever which will contribute to great achievements.

And worst still, many are media shy.