Vacation Time !!

Am off to small vacation of 10 days. Going to Kolkata today and then will be flying to Imphal (Manipur) on Sunday 19th Sep.
My neice will be celebrating her first birthday and don't want to miss the action (am sure there will be plenty).
You might not see any new posts for next 10 days, but will try my best to make up for it.

Yahoo! Acquires MusicMatch

Yahoo! announced its acquisition of MusicMatch. The deal is said to be in range of about $160 million. That's how much the company's paying for San Diego-based MusicMatch so it too can offer an online music store.

Here's the AP with details:
The all-cash acquisition gives Sunnyvale-based Yahoo a major drawing card as it competes against the likes of Apple Computer, Real Networks and Napster in the rapidly growing field of digital music management.

MusicMatch will provide Yahoo with two features that it doesn't currently offer -- an online music store that sells individual songs for 99 cents apiece and a popular software program that helps manage digital music on computer desktops.

Gmail Bug

Those of you using Gmail, take a good look at this.....this is a huge bug!!!

But, Remember.....Gmail is still in Beta.

Flash Certification - What's in it for me?

Chris Bizzel, senior web developer for The Pinnacle Consulting Group has an article on www.actionscript.com on the Macromedia Certifications and what it can do to developers like us.
I am a Macromedia Certified developer myself. I also know Arpit, Adi Reddy and couple of other Indian developers who are certified. I cannot say about others, but certification certainly gave me a boost and confidence to perform better at my job. It also gave a certain respect and credibility to developers. That's what I think....any thoughts, guys???

Nominations for FlashForward 2005 SF open

Nominations for FlashForward 2005 SF is now open. So go and nominate your favorite site/app/animation, etc for the Flash Film Festival:
http://www.flashforwardconference.com/nomination

The Flash Film festival is a lot of fun, and the sessions are normally really good but mostly it's about meeting other geeks who understand what Flash is all about (or so I have heard...Unfortunately have not been there myself).
You can read all about the conference here:
http://www.flashforwardconference.com

And if you want to see the past winners of the Flash Film Festival go here:
http://www.flashforwardconference.com/default.asp?Location=15,121,651,827
It's worth checking out for inspiration, as most (if not all) of the winners are amazing.

Flex Builder: The IDE for Flex

Recently got my hands on Flex Builder (formerly code named Brady), the IDE for Flex. Real cool stuff you can make considering I am still using it as a testing tool (came to me as a Beta Tester).
The net result is that Flex as a product is updated and now the price, considered out of reach by many of us, includes a nice IDE. On top of this, Flex Builder is based on DreamWeaver MX 2004 and has every feature it has, so when you have Flex Builder, you don't need an extra DreamWeaver license.

ET Coming true ??

CNN has this report on its web site about the unexplained radio signal received from outer space. Sounds weird but goes on to strengthen the belief of millions out there that "We are not alone".
Well, in case this is true, we definitely are not !!
Read the whole story here.