Simple explanation for everything !

Stumbled across this wonderful quote by Einstein. Einstein never fails to amaze me. Perfect addition for my Quotes collection for common place diary.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein



I think this goes with all the technical authors out there whose books we try and fail to understand, thinking that the problem is with us, that we are not able to understand.

Happy New Year to All

Time for New Year Resolutions !
-------------------------------------

Here are few of mine to get you started !

1. Be Bold in Executing Ideas !

Because "Most ideas never work - unless you make sure they do" and "The bold idea has a higher probability of realization than the conservative one" - Genrich Altshuller





2. Read More Great Books

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. - Confucius

3. Learn something new ! Photography ?

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

4. Think/ Write about Design

"Design is not how it looks, Design is How it Works" - Steve Jobs

5. Talk/Present and Share your knowledge on Technology

Sharing teaches you more than Learning

6. Have More Fun !

"If you are not having FUN you are NOT doing it right" - Bob Basso

So, what's your Resolution ?

Joining W3C as a Nokian

If you ever wanted to change the World Wide Web for better, now is the time, Join W3C and make the difference.



I was nominated by Nokia for Three Groups WebApps, WebApps Security and will be soon joining Web Accessibility. Looking forward to contribute.

Am I excited ? You Bet !

Fun with Silverlight 4 Book

The book is finally available at Amazon and other book stores.

Buy from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Silverlight-Illustrated-Creating-Applications/dp/1463506023/

It took more than 3 years to finish this 600 page long book.

Fun with Silverlight 4

The Illustrated Guide to Creating Rich Internet Application with Examples in C#, ASP.NET, XAML, Media, Webcam, AJAX, REST & Web Services.

This book illustrates more than 100 features in Silverlight using a simple problem/solution approach. It takes one feature at a time and guides you in progressive journey where you begin by using the basic components, then by creating graphics and animations. You then create rich media applications on the client and web services, and delve into calling advanced Web services like AJAX, REST and WCF services from Silverlight.

In the Book
---------------
1. Design a Rich Internet Application
2. Extend the Control Framework
3. Create Compelling Graphics
4. Work with Animation
5. Extend the Browser Programming Model
6. Bring Data Visualization to the Web
7. Develop with ASP.NET and Ajax
8. Work with Web Services
9. Create Rich Silverlight Media Applications
10. Deliver Enhanced and Interactive Streaming Video Experiences

Fun with Silverlight 4, Available Now Hot off the press !

Finally the book I have been working for last 3 years sees the light of the day. The book will be available at amazon, b&n, and other book stores in few days, but it is available to order Hot Off the Press

Get the Book "Fun with Silverlight 4" here https://www.createspace.com/3616306



More information about the book at http://silverlightfun.com

7 Key HTML5 challenges for N-Screens: My Session at W3C conference

Everything you need to know about developing HTML5 Apps on multiple devices was at W3C conference. I was there in Redmond, Nov 15-16, 2011 this week and it was amazing, first time all the vendors together, instead of talks about individual device/ browsers, all the sessions were focused on the common part, the HTML5 part. If you missed the conference check videos here W3C conference Presentation Videos.

My presentation was about N-Screens Problem, the set of challenges you come across when you develop an App for multiple connected devices. How HTML5 WebApp solution was the most promising solution for the developers. My session was around the 7 Key implementation challenges you will face when developing a Web App solution for multiple devices with different form factors.

The 7 key challenges were, Feature Detection, Layout detection, Using CSS3, Choice of Animation between SVG, Canvas, CSS3 Animation, and WebGL, Audio Video related problems and their work-arounds, and how to use advanced HTML5 API with a brief on Polyfills and Shims.

Here is the online demo of my presentation. Detect your N-device HTML5 features and APIs at http://widgets-gadgets.com/html5. Source code of the demo here

N Screens problem: W3C Conference Redmond, Nov 15,2011

View more presentations from Rajesh Lal

Here is the Video recorded of the session at W3C.

3D with Silverlight: My article at MSDN magazine

Learn 3D with Silverlight, at MSDN Magazine

Great review about the article - Mike James, I Programmer,

"Silverlight 3D for me this article was the star of the show. It is about three different ways to create a rotating 3D cube in Silverlight. After some basic theory it explains how to do the job in Silverlight 4 first using rectangles and projections and then using bitmap images. The third method however is much more satisfactory - using XNA with Silverlight 5. Can't wait for Silverlight 5!"


Here is excerpts from my article, let me know if you find it useful.

Developing 3D Objects in Silverlight

In this article, I’ll show you how to develop 3D objects in Silverlight. I’ll start with a brief background on 3D and then look at some of the advanced features available in Silverlight that enable creation and display of 3D objects. I’ll take a simple example of a cube and show you three different ways to create 3D transformations. I’ll also explain what key elements you need to display a 3D object on a computer screen. Finally, I’ll explore how Silverlight 5 will allow you to go beyond what’s available today and create much richer 3D objects.

Silverlight supports a right-handed coordinate system, which means the positive z axis is pointing toward the viewer (see Figure1). There are three main elements of 3D that are needed for displaying an object on the screen:

* Perspective
* Transformation
* Effect of light

More .... check at Developing 3D Objects in Silverlight at MSDN Magazine

For the book Fun with Silverlight 4

Ten Principles of Good Design

Stumbled across this amazing 10 design principles by Dieter Rams, one of the Germany's best known industrial designer, a living legend.



Good design:

1. Is innovative - The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

2. Makes a product useful - A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

3. Is aesthetic - The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

4. Makes a product understandable - It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

5. Is unobtrusive - Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.

6. Is honest - It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

7. Is long-lasting - It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today's throwaway society.

8. Is thorough down to the last detail - Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

9. Is environmentally friendly - Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

10. Is as little design as possible - Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.



About Dieter Rams

Rams is possibly the most well-known German industrial designer, who not only produced—or directly oversaw— the design of more than 500 products in the course of his 40 years of service for Braun, but also established and headed a design department, which was extremely productive and made a global enterprise out of the company Radio Braun of Frankfurt. To date, Rams and Braun represent what is considered the typical German design approach, in which thoroughness, straightforwardness, clarity, and meaningfulness play a special role.

Born in Wiesbaden in 1932, the much-honored and highly distinguished designer was a graduate of the innovative Wiesbaden Werkkunstschule. Following his initial employment in the architectural firm of Otto Apel, Rams took a position at Braun in 1955 as an interior designer. At the time, the two young Braun family heirs, Erwin and Artur Braun, were in search of a new approach to the design of their radios, shavers, and household appliances in a manner keeping with the spirit of the times. In the "Braun lab" of the 1950s, to which the Bauhaus designers Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Herbert Hirche as well as the young design academy Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm contributed substantially, Rams soon took a leading position; in 1961 he was appointed head of the newly established design department. Already in the early years of the new decade, Braun design earned the highest recognition through awards and exhibitions at the Milan Triennale, the World Fair in Brussels, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Rams's furniture designs for Vitsœ further carved out a permanent place for their products in the residential environments of contemporaries with a modern consciousness.

Steve Jobs: Tribute to a legend

Here are my favorite 7 Quotes from Steve jobs.

1. Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.



2. Good artists copy great artists steal



3. Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.



4. Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world? - To get John Sculley as Apple's CEO

5. Make it like a sunflower.
Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple, to Johnathan Ive, Vice President of Design, Apple, on prev version of iMac

6. Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. -- narrated by Steve Jobs




7. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

8. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.

9. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

10. “Click. Boom. Amazing!” – Macworld keynote 2006

11. "I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates."
—Newsweek, 2001

12. "I want to put a ding in the universe."

13. I make 50 cents for showing up ... and the other 50 cents is based on my performance.
On his famous $1 annual salary, at the annual Apple shareholder meeting in 2007, as quoted in "Jobs: 'I make fifty cents just for showing up'" in AppleInsider (10 May 2007)

14. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

15. People with passion can change the world for better !

Better Presenter than Steve Jobs ?

I never thought I will write a blog with this title. I have learned a lot from Steve Jobs after my target of 2009, but recently I came across a presentation on "Patterns of Human Interaction" by Marko Ahtisaari (Global head of Nokia Design) at Copenhagen Design Week, which not only blew my mind, but changed my perspective about presentation all together.






About the presentation
Five billion people have a mobile phone. Today, no single, technological device is more in our hands than the mobile phone – it has become the media through which humans interact.


Marko Ahtisaari is the global head of Nokia's design unit, and he is responsible for Nokia’s product and user experience design. During Copenhagen Design Week, Marko shared Nokia’s thoughts on how design will shape and influence the patterns of human interaction in the future at a Nokia event at Bella Sky Hotel.



What I found unique about the presentation is, Marko leaves a deeper impact without trying hard to sell. Its plane awesome, and it is modest and it is honest, which I think appeals to everybody equally. Marko is well dressed and extremely efficient in his walk, and he talk with a very positive body language. He always seems to be at ease and is smiling most of the time in a most friendly manner. Each of his words tell, he is clear and concise, he does not repeat, he does not overstate, his words all fit precisely in his talk. He makes a point he is trying to make, in a straight forward and most effective manner. And most important of all his presentation does not even have any bells and whistles. Blank white screen with a white door ! Most of the first few pages are hand drawn concepts or a single image. No chimming sounds, no explosion effects and no cutting edge graphics. 


Absolutely awesome ! My new idol ! If you want to learn how to present well learn from him Marko Ahtisaari (The Best presenter I have seen in the world). Each and everything he does is simple, yet mind blowing.

That also reminded me of something very unique, when I joined Nokia 2 1/2 years ago. I came to know that Nokia is all about "Being Humble" and I think thats the finiish culture completely opposite of American culture, which is a bit more aggressive salesmanship like ofcourse Steve Jobs.


Thank You for the Inspiration Marco Ahtisaari


Here are excerpts from another blog about the same presentation .


http://raesmaa.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/the-finnish-awesomeness-and-entrepreneurship/




The Finnish Way of Being
Serendipitously I happened to bump into another type of Finnish awesomeness.  I listened to Senior VP of Design at Nokia Marko Ahtisaari’s presentation at the Copenhagen Design Week.
The first 12 minutes (the rest of it is mostly about Nokia design and future development, interesting as well) of his speech ‘Patterns of Human Interaction’ had an effect on me. His humble way of speaking about how better design can help us to make each other feel that we are welcome, is just awesome. A beautiful perspective! 


Another observation I made is his style of speaking, it is very Finnish (read: very non-American). He is not shouting and feverishly waving his hands – no, instead he applies the traditional Finnish style: he is calm, speaks very softly and is overall adorable and kind. And all that without being boring. It kind of reminds me of the way Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg speaks. Or Alex Osterwalder, or Aalto Entrepreneurship Society’s president Miki Kuusi. So I warmly recommend you to listen to Marko, at least the first 12 minutes.


Small Talk and Positive Silence


These great people and the two events – AaltoES with Steve Blank & Marko Ahtisaari and his talk about more human design principles – made me think about what is “Finnishness”, and why I’ll find it awesome and full of possibilities for the entrepreneurship too.
The Finnishness?, you may ask. Yes, we do have some national characteristics that can be more rare among other nationalities, we can be seen as very shy, but on the other hand our curiosity and creativity makes it easy for us to connect and share. To connect and share, and most importantly to listen. On top of that we are very persistent and diligent; we don’t like to give in. Except in football.
We Finns can easily be silent in company with other people. It’s natural. Foreigners often find our silence odd, or fascinating. Professor of Communication Donal Carbaugh, from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, have written an excellent paper about this – Silence and Quietude as a Finnish“Natural Way of Being” [pdf], with the following description:

“A Finnish communication code that structures some cultural scenes as occasions for positive silence, exhibiting a social model of personhood for which this is a valued, respected, and natural practice.”

I just love this expression, positive silence. Please consider positive silence as time for thinking, reflecting, and listening. The paper explains the Finnish way of communication with many good example stories; it can truly help in understanding us Finns…


Another great read is this short article of the Helsinki Times – No small talk please, we’re Finnish, in which freelance journalist Susan Fourtané describes her experiences:

“I particularly enjoyed the thoughtfulness and the moments of silence in between, giving space for observing our own thoughts before speaking. Yes, you have heard it right. Finns don’t do small talk. They don’t think a moment of shared silence is awkward. On the contrary, it is part of the conversation. A direct question gets a direct answer. There is no nonsense talk about nothing. There is no asking “How are you?” ten times until someone says something else, or stating the obvious. Finns are more interested in how you think, how you perceive Finland or what keeps you in this small and cold country, as they refer to beautiful and peaceful Finland.”

Less small talk and more positive silence, I believe that this enables better listening, and further better understanding.