Microsoft has recently announced that it would introduce a rival to Flash. It calls it “Silverlight”. I mentioned this a couple of years ago when it was called “Sparkle”. Bear in mind, however, that a lot of truths are being hidden and the intent here is to make the Web incompatible with Free operating systems. The points to remember:

• Silverlight does not support GNU/Linux.
• Silverlight is built to make the Web accessible only to proprietary platforms, even if one can view the source.
• Silverlight can be ‘extended’ at any given time. There is no industry consortium.
• Microsoft corrupts terminology by using the terms ‘Open Source’ and ‘cross platform’ inadequately. It is not the first time this do this. They used ‘cross platform’ to describe programs that work in Windows Mobile, Windows, and XBox.

Don’t be misled. Use Adobe Flash if you must. Better yet, use Open Web standards and make use of cascading style sheets, maybe even JavaScript.

Got something to say? Then say it in satellite pictures.

It’s a nice idea with an implementation that delivers the output as you type.

Similar tools:

• Text to Church Sign Convertor
• ASCII Banner Generator
• Cyborg Name Generator
• Polaroid Images

.dYWu:H1\3ib`=T*Zoi9{>C].hHmdJ#z~":dJ5pFYAC`jJ6I~pf</F~#Sp(\[J6OgtEBO"[
@'u^%Ia#bVQhL%Cw#^nUFCIAEjS=M(B6B'>OUrp)Y"ZY}Z\Y~`g#I,JSw?7"3&Fctfk^)\]8{j[7)M
Nj%-#0a}S+*8oFlP^l,>&Y^1yhEYGz7>sv*'OuW}a9Oq}:<Ra*`;',OG@O=wj0mp'{Q|hbDm&yS-#r
m;DM)4S$!IX22Ou)-Y^lh[pu6VX8Dh0dG&Fv[54aJZeX*LAV]2w9wSR15

To view this short sequence as an actual image, use this Web-based tool. You may also create your own X-Face, which can be bound to your E-mail as a succinct header. I wonder if a fetch key can be created for X-Faces in the same way that PGP keys can be replaced by a shorter identifier. I suppose a URL can be specified in the header instead.

ESTERDAY I took a quick tour through some mockups and proposal made for the KDE project. I would like to present three examples, which are merely screenshots, sometimes combined with art work.

• Navigation Bar Reloaded
• Korganizer better integration
• KBFX 0.5 (One of the mockups)

As these ideas were contributed and voted on by the community of users, no doubt KDE will remain at the forefront of functionality and user experience. It’s a case of programmers preparing and eating their own dogfood, so to speak.

TUART Nicholls has been doing some stunning work on cutting-edge cascading style sheets (CSS). I first noticed his work roughly one year ago. More latterly I came to discover that he had implemented pure-CSS fonts! Imagine the complexity. Have a look at some time-consuming illustrations of the power of CSS:

• CSS font
• Snooker Cue (requires a Mozilla-based Web browser)
• Opaque, overlapping circles

No images are involved in creating any of the above, among many more which you can find in the site.

Also see: Barcharts using CSS