tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77773254686941333382024-03-13T13:40:16.286-04:00intelligent mediaSoftware development and industry movements in the Out of Home (sometimes known as Digital Signage) business.Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-10767747439307500292008-02-19T11:03:00.003-05:002008-02-19T11:05:46.803-05:00good summary of Web App Design MistakesI liked the summary of <a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-mistakes.html">application design guidelines/mistakes</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-89331045769225307172008-01-10T23:32:00.001-05:002008-01-10T23:32:05.407-05:00Lets hope this is not the future of OOH<p>We have already <a title="Gizmodo posting" href="http://gizmodo.com/343360/ibm-wins-most-sexist-and-degrading-promotional-device" target="_blank">seen some of this in</a> public places like stations and  conventions - <sigh></p> <p> <a href="http://lh3.google.com/Prodokol/R4bxQ8RVQYI/AAAAAAAAAB8/qeeq3wMba6o/oohShirt%5B63%5D"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="84" alt="oohShirt" src="http://lh5.google.com/Prodokol/R4bxRcRVQZI/AAAAAAAAACI/vundiYiJwE4/oohShirt_thumb%5B61%5D" width="84" border="0" /></a></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-30686105522130314472008-01-09T17:39:00.000-05:002008-01-09T18:06:58.173-05:00PRN, Walmart and HDTV<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.thomson.net/_layouts/Thomson.Internet/Images/logo.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.thomson.net/_layouts/Thomson.Internet/Images/logo.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://www.thomson.net/GlobalEnglish/Corporate/News/PressReleases/Pages/Thomsons-out-of-home-networks-business-launches-ground-breaking-in-store-media-solution.aspx">Press release</a> from our cousins over at PRN regarding the HDTV support within the Walmart network which talks about a HDTV remote management system.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10431119"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.economist.com/images/economist_logo.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Economist <a href="http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10431119">makes some observations </a>about why out of home media networks succeed and points to the PRN / Walmart partnership as an example of a winning combination.<br /><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-48863187140960129802007-10-11T12:32:00.000-04:002007-10-11T12:34:19.779-04:00@Media 2007, UK Media Conference slides & audio<span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p style="font-family: georgia;"></o:p><span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:100%;" >A collection of the slides, audio podcasts and other media items from the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> based media conference <a href="http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2007/europe/speakers/">@Media 2007</a><br /><br />http://learningtheworld.eu/2007/atmedia-2007-slides/<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Thanks to Martin for this collection of great free resources</span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-23717772864194308702007-07-16T11:53:00.001-04:002007-07-16T11:55:25.123-04:00Windows and Video Codecs<span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;">Used this to some extent recently and its always an annoying problem - which codecs do i need to play the media (specifically video) I have or recieve<br /><br />This helps<br /><br /></span><a href="http://www.jockersoft.com/english/codecinstaller_download.php"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;">http://www.jockersoft.com/english/codecinstaller_download.php</span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-53826348281435880202007-07-05T12:49:00.000-04:002007-07-05T12:58:10.939-04:00HTML v5.0<span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-size:85%;">If your using a framework (abstracting HTML away from the dev) or hand coding it does seem that it pays to know your HTML and that HTML is not going away any time soon.<br /><br />Since the arrival of the 'div' tag I have been advocating using them and not Tables - not everyone shared my opinion and it seems there is plenty of table work out there and for good reason in many cases.<br /><br /><a href="http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/%7Echeckout%7E/html5/html4-differences/Overview.html">HTML 5.0</a> - what does it do for us and how? I may not get to t all in one go but plan to break out some of the changes that might be of interest or have impact.<br /><br /><a href="http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/%7Echeckout%7E/html5/html4-differences/Overview.html">HTML v4.0 vs v5.0 Differences</a><br /><br /><br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-11805946928521006082007-06-15T02:22:00.001-04:002008-01-11T00:00:29.690-05:00Functional testing for Web Applications<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">WatiN</span><br />http://watintestrecord.sourceforge.net/WatiN - C# automated IE only automated testing (inspired by Watir)<br />(Have not used this but it looks way to interesting to not take a deeper dive for a dot net dev shop)<br />http://blogs.conchango.com/richardgriffin/archive/2006/10/18/WATiN-web-recorder_2B002B00_-prototype.aspx<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the tool </span>- http://watin.sourceforge.net/index.html<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the recorder </span>- http://watintestrecord.sourceforge.net/<br /><br />Customization can be done in c# and vb.net which makes this very powerful - we will have to take a look and maybe post some results back here soon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">WatiR</span> - Ruby based automated testing tool<br />(I have used this and although you dont have to learn ruby if you want to customize - which is only needed if you get deep - its very very good and easy to use)<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watir<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the tool</span> - http://wtr.rubyforge.org/<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the recorder </span>- http://www.openqa.org/watir-recorder/documentation.action<br />http://www.hanselman.com/blog/NewReleaseOfWatirMakerNowWatirRecorder.aspx<br /><br />Functional testing in web apps has up until recently been done well only well by full featured mature testing products which are of course come with appropriateprice tags, seem to have a perception of a steep learning curve and I always think the biggest issues of all is the team, department or organizational commitment required (that decision alone cripples developers or leads doing it unless they have some strengths in that area).<br /><br />Functional testing is always done - whether you want to do it or not, do this formally or not - don't be mistaken that its skipped - its done by the team in informal manual ways - before or after the build in production breaks. If not then its done by your users and translates into - well we all know what. ALso in many cases I have experienced people in the periphery of the team (you name it someone that offers will be allowed to do this) - 'let me hit it till I break something' and then send you 10meg screen shots of a screen that is no one can repeat or even the user can describe how they got there. That includes 10 meg screen shots of the field validation for required fields which they think should not be there and the 'hey cant we do some ajax on this whole page so it looks cool' comments.<br /><br />At some point in smaller tight teams that end up being successful building a large web app but never really commit to learning the big tools or hiring dedicated testers its just too painful to not think about getting help - a tool - an automated tool - scripts - DIY testing harnesses - dev testing tools used against UI - custom code - triggers and monitoring systems - your wife in her break between putting the baby for a nap and making dinner for you while you natter at the coffee machine waiting for her to excel spreadsheet the results back to<br />you.<br /><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-6234593428001428462007-06-07T11:51:00.001-04:002007-06-13T13:59:04.287-04:00MS Silverlight and learning<div style="font-family: georgia;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-size:85%;">Have not had a chance to review these tutorials as yet but they looked polished - not sure if they have been building this content up for a while but there seems to be plenty there to get over the initial learning curve.<br /><br /><a href="http://silverlight.net/Learn/learnvideos.aspx">http://silverlight.net/Learn/learnvideos.aspx</a></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />Looking at Netflix online film last night and it looks like they rolled out the fullscreen version of the Silverlight player - whatever it was it played the video immed. and great quality too.<br /><br />MIX07<br />we have been workign our way slowly through this content from the Mix07 sessions from a few weeks/months back now - also good intros to all the WPF releases in real business context.<br /><a href="http://sessions.visitmix.com/"><br />Sessions at Mix07</a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-14588051722829295432007-05-31T22:32:00.000-04:002007-06-13T14:00:30.292-04:00FFMpeg<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The </span><a style="font-family: georgia;" href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffmpeg/">FFMpeg</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> video audio converter project has a </span><a style="font-family: georgia;" href="http://dranger.com/ffmpeg/">tutorial posted here</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> if your interested in learning more about it.</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: georgia;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFmpeg">FFMpeg Overview</a></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7777325468694133338.post-30649351374780199402007-05-31T18:44:00.001-04:002007-06-13T14:00:52.318-04:00Collections<span style=";font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;" >I am always sending out emails about information links, events, code, tips and just noticed that over the last year it would have been useful put in one place.<br /><br />The work of developing and delivering solutions within the Digital Signage or Out Of Home media industry.<br /><br />I work for Convergent and division of Technicolor and although his is personal and related to general industry news that would be public knowledge I suspect I will need to get some approval - so we will wait and see.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">digital signage technology software microsoft silverlight dotnet .net OOH</div>Naveed Ashrafhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07499384195236147791noreply@blogger.com0