The movie version of this comic book was released last year but it’s a misplaced judgment to think that I picked the comic book ONLY for this reason. The artwork of ‘Watchmen’ – colouring, penciling, compositions grabbed my attention, Dave Gibbons has done them so wonderfully. Also all the 12 issues published by DC Comics in a single volume makes it a collector’s item!

Like any other comic-book that you grab, one tends to get caught in the illustrations & colour, same happened here. As the story progresses towards a thrilling climax paying more attention to finer details becomes irrelevant or difficult – aren’t comics supposed to be enjoyed, lived through? but ‘Watchmen’ is different. I noted some nuances which I came across during my reading, you’ll realize why this is NOT an ordinary comic-book we’re talking here. I am still discovering the hidden facets from ‘Watchmen’ and will add them here, perhaps it might take another reading. But these are just a few of my hurried notes.

Comic-within-a-Comic
Scenes appear intermittently of another comic story juxtaposing with the main storyline. At a newsstand in downtown New York City, a teenager called Bernie (Bernard) is reading a comic-book ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ comprising the story ‘Marooned’, he mentions reading it repeatedly. It’s about a castaway mariner, adrift on a raft made of bodies of his former shipmates, going towards his home at Davidstown to warn his family of the arrival of a phantom pirate ship called the ‘Black Freighter’. When he reaches Davidstown he finds it is already under the occupation of the pirate crew. After murdering a couple at the shores, he returns home and kills a night watchman only to realize it’s his wife he has murdered in panic. Destruction has now befallen upon him. As he escapes the scene & returns to the shore he finds the ‘Black Freighter’ approaching, ready to claim the only life that it truly desired – he boards the ship eagerly. What I’m now trying to understand is the logic behind presenting this story as a comic within ‘Watchmen’; whether it has any moral resemblance to the main story.

The owner of the news stand is an old man called Bernard. It’s been shown that he’s not particularly happy about Bernie spending time at the newsstand reading the comic for free but when he finds out about his namesake, a special affection grows for the young lad. However sadly when the Alien Monster is unleashed upon New York City by Adrian Veidt, Bernard tries to save the teenager and both eventually succumb to the destruction (Page 6, Chapter XII). I believe that the presence of Nite Owl II, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan & Silk Spectre at Veidt’s Antartic retreat ‘Karnak’ saved their lives from the Alien Monster catastrophe.

Clocks
With progressive chapters, on the title page there’s a clock with the minute hand drawing closer to midnight that’s similar to the Doomsday Clock that symbolizes the end of the world. Finally in Chapter XII the clock strikes 12 when the Alien Monster is dropped & half of the New York City is obliterated.

The Knot Tops
They are a dreaded gang headed by man named Derf. The name ‘Knot Tops’ comes from a Japanese style of knotting their heads. They mistakenly murder Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl thinking he has freed Rorschach from the prison. Eventually it’s shown in Chapter XII that the Knot Tops perish outside a movie theater on ‘doomsday’. Therefore the illustrations are not merely drawn for effects but to further the storyline. I also found that the ‘Katies’ which the Knot Tops are seen referring is a street drug called KT-28, you can see someone asking for it and popping the contents of a packet in the next box.

Comedian’s Smiley Badge
The yellow badge with a smiley face appears in the first chapter during the murder of The Comedian. He was wearing the badge on his dressing gown when he was thrown out of the window of his apartment, it was lying washed near the gutter on the street with a blood stain on it. Subsequently Rorschach picks up the badge & begins the investigation. That’s where the story starts.

About the blood stain – an interpretation drawn from some websites was an arrow of the minute hand of a clock pointing at 10 minutes to 12, implying symbolically to the Doomsday Clock and the proximity of the catastrophic destruction of the Earth. The smiley face also appears as a crater on Argyre Planitia of planet Mars when Laurie goes to meet Doctor Manhattan and as his clockwork tower starts breaking up (Page 27, Chapter IX). The badge appears on numerous pages in the comic as well.

Rorschach’s Mask
Walter Kovacs a.k.a. Rorschach is the main character of the entire series, he raises the alarm and investigates a murderer who’s after the masked superheroes, confiding the truth in Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) after The Comedian is killed.

(Chapter VI, Page 10) After being framed in the murder of Edgar Jacobi (the masked hero Moloch, the mystic), he tells Dr. Malcolm Long, the psychologist about the history behind his “face”. In 1962 while working in a garment factory, he received a special order for a dress from a young girl with an Italian name for a Dr. Manhattan spin-off fabric – “viscous fluids between two layers latex, heat and pressure sensitive”, he notes. The girl never collects the dress but Kovacs loves it, telling Dr. Long, “…black and white. Moving. Changing shape…but not mixing. No Gray”. Since nobody wanted it, he takes it home and cuts it to make a mask. And that becomes the true identity of Rorschach, his face.

I am trying to find answers to the following –
(1) what’s that thing President Nixon’s holding in his hand in Chapter X?
(2) Veidt poisons the 3 gentlemen in ‘Karnak’, who are they, servants or scientists?
(3) Is there any significance behind the perfume bottle which Laurie breaks on Mars, recollecting her past to Jon. And some more…as I read the comic book once again for crucial answers.

Writing immersible content for the web is always challenging. It’s a medium not known to sustain readership beyond a few seconds. Imagine having to sell a product in a limited amount of time and sustaining the attention span of an online user. This is what the workshop intended to address. Content speaks to a specific audience and good content only makes the actions on the website more compelling.

A few scientific facts that relate to web content – people don’t read web pages, they scan. Reading is usually 25% slower on the web than print. Also, since readers don’t read what has been written on the web page, therefore the first few paragraphs of your article must state the important things first to sustain interest. Another surprising aspect about online behavior is that users tend to focus on images first, particularly if the image is that of a lady.

The anatomy of a web page content is divided into three parts – Page Title, Heading and Paragraph. Therefore for better comprehension of the content, a page title must be clear, short and simple, the heading must be used to make the major points and the first paragraph should describe the major points in detail. The inverted pyramid style of writing web content is a good example of presenting the conclusions at the beginning while providing the details at the end. This helps the user to grasp the gist of the article immediately.

Amidst some live examples in slides the discussion then pointed towards best practices of web content writing. Such as using highlighted points, having lists, using bulleted points to aid in scanning the details, avoid writing numbers (1 rather than ‘one’) and not using underlined text that gives the impression of a link to the user. Most importantly avoid using jargon in your content writing.

Amongst other things the workshop focussed on case studies and research papers too. One research suggested that if the length of the line is too long it slows the reading speed considerably. Another research provided conclusive evidence about the preference of users for left aligned text because the focus point of reading is fixed and always constant. Also the workshop discussed making software error messages concise and simple to understand. In a nutshell an ideal error message should tell the user what the error is, where the error is and how the error can be rectified.

Sadly a very interesting and insightful workshop had to be concluded but not before it left an indelible mark on our minds.

FedEx would have delivered the package on March 23rd if Mount Redoubt had not erupted ‘untimely’. All FedEx flights were diverted and the package took a week more than usual for delivery. It was a situation beyond anyone’s control but I was getting impatient. Finally the good news from FedEx that the package had arrived in Regina early morning and was going to be delivered today. No way I was going to miss the delivery schedule (and wait another day). I requested the executive to let me know an hour before the delivery van was at my doorstep so I could go home and she agreed.

Finally the call came from FedEx but guess what?!! the delivery van had already reached my doorstep and the lady was apologetic for missing the point (aw! darn!). The driver said “sorry” he couldn’t wait and his next stop would be the Sask Energy building just in case I could catch him. I made a dash for my house in the cold and saw the FedEx white van turning at the corner of the street 2 blocks away from my location and vanishing- oh dang! I reached my doorstep to see if there was a note but couldn’t find one but I knew the van was in the vicinity. Reaching the Sask Energy building was my next goal and the biting cold made a block look like a kilometer long.

Soon enough I saw the white van turning into the backyard of the huge Sask Energy building and I was running once again to catch it before it vanishes once again. The van was parked amidst a few more white vehicles camouflaging it nicely. It felt like I had been set up for a cruel joke – when I reached the driver had disappeared. I wasn’t sure how long I would be waiting in the harsh cold. I wanted my Mac TODAY, I said to myself and I’m not leaving without getting it. Sooner than I’d finished cursing myself, a uniformed personnel arrived smilingly like he knew who I was and what I was looking for. Apple, he told me had not authorized him to reroute the package to the office address (which was pitiful) and he had a schedule to meet so he had to rush. After the preliminary exchange of greetings, he vanished inside the van to find what I was looking for and reappeared with a puny little box that hardly look like it contained Mac. And it was so freaking light! A few “thank you”s and “apologies” later we both went our ways. I left the box at my apartment and it’s lying there now awaiting my arrival in the evening.

And so the Mac is here FINALLY. The question that begs an answer – is this the end of my long affair with the PC?

I have been on WordPress since 2005. However I have found that it takes a lot of effort for a single person to update and maintain this highly acclaimed application. I have to take constant back-ups of my database/files/wordpress files and keep up with the current version as and when it has been released. It’s time consuming and stressful and sometimes puts me in a panic state of mind – what if the new upgrade doesn’t work for me.

Moreover to maintain the following of readers I am always under pressure to write frequently which given my crazy mood pangs and writing skills is not possible. I am always searching for bright ideas to keep the crowd entertained but it’s not easy sometimes. Besides my hectic schedule the motivation to to write something creative has been dwindling in the past few weeks. The website has lived it’s lifeline and served it’s purpose. It’s time to now move on to the next generations of apps.

Given the limited resources (creatively and technically) I have decided to shift to Twitter and Tumblr temporarily. I find using these social networking tools an efficient way to express my thoughts with less time and effort. I will continue to write for my website till the time I decide to replace it with something more useful but not frequently. I am heading for a change pretty soon.

In late 2003, five of my close buddies had wanted to do something worthwhile. We were at best designers with creative skills but worked out of home; some of them like me on a paltry sum. On the night of October 2nd, we launched a ‘designers only’ forum hiring some space on Buttclencher’s server. We decided to call it ‘SurfUnion’ or a group of surfing designers. The name took the imagination of all the admins as we liked to call ourselves and later we were joined by many. One of them was a geeky guy nicknamed Bane and was located in Colombo. Five of us – myself, Kreativea (Aadesh), Buttclencher (Raunaq), RanTen (Ranajit Tendolkar) and FlashKid (Isaac) operated from Mumbai. Thus we had a majority stake in the decision making process while LimeIce (Gursimran) located in Delhi and Ryche (Fahd) in Kolkata completed the admin lineup. The fabulous tagline of ‘We put the Desi in Design’ was suggested by Ryche in one of our online sessions. During our tenure, we arranged competitions and meetups that helped bring varied talents face-to-face.

At its peak when SU (as it was fondly called) was running, we had anywhere between 700-750 members, some of them from beyond India as well. In my role as the most active member, I am proud to have accumulated so many good friends that have remained with me even today. A sad gaffe on our part and a lag in attention forced us to shut down SU forever. The decision of not relaunching it was the most difficult and a tough one to take for the admins. It was an emotional setback for many of its union members who had made SU their second home. Graphic-Forums.com was the only successful community at that point in time and we decided to model SU on GF but make it the first Indian designers community. I am proud to say that we were successful in doing so.

Back in the early 2000s, social networking had not yet evolved like today. As technology progresses and social media acquires a new meaning, has the time come to start a new chapter for the union members? will a new look SurfUnion help promote design awareness, cater to the emerging technologies and look beyond just photoshop battles, to apply the knowledge in forging a stronger Indian design community? The answers beckon us and so does the fervor which has been glowing in my heart for a long time. It’s time to rise and think, all ye Union members!

Applications developed using AIR provide a delightful way of presenting live data and one does not need to be connected to the internet all the time. From the visual standpoint, AIR technology offers the power to change the interface design thus bringing a coherence between function and looks. This also greatly enhances the UX of the product and supplements any deficiencies in the original structure. It seems unlikely that the increasing reach of AIR would make the internet browser applications redundant since a majority of the internet population still relies on the software for surfing pages. However as a reminder, the developers and designers must begin earnestly to move towards web standards and help to bring about a consistency in the way content and design is demonstrated online. Till such time get addicted to AIR like me.

Some interesting AIR applications that I came across on the internet:
• Twhirl – posting on Twitter was never so exciting. It’s got an amazing dashboard plus you can select from a list of themes.
• Google Analytics AIR – your website statistics report presented in a much friendlier form.
• ReadAIR – Subscribed RSS feeds from your Google Reader account.
• Shrink-O-Matic – Easy-to-use batch resizing of GIFs, JPEGs and PNGs.
• WebSnapShot – Instant screen captures in a variety of forms.

AIR Information:
• Adobe AIR: Developer FAQ
• Fresh AIR apps – Resource, tutorials and list of Adobe AIR apps.
• Adobe AIR – Browser vs. Desktop comparison chart
• Adobe Topic Center page on Rich Internet Application
• 6 Adobe AIR Apps to check out

Back to the story. The conference was being held in the spacious environs of the Indian School of Business (ISB) in the Khemka Auditorium. The scheduled start was 8:30 am but it got delayed and finally kicked-off nearly 2 hours later. When we reached the place early morning, the banners were not yet displayed and we were completely lost. The chief guest for the event was Ravi Pooviah, my long time idol and a professor from IDC-IIT. This year UMO (Usability Matters.org) was exploring the theme of health innovation and therefore the guests from medical to software industry were offered an opportunity to showcase their work in that field. Amongst the presentations Parmeshwar Raju’s lecture on Designing through a grid layout and Anirudha Joshi’s slides on devising User-experience metrics were found to be most interesting. I also enjoyed Shruti Agarwal’s discussion on SMOKEDOTE, which is an interactive game for smokers. The design of her slides was very creative indeed. Shruti’s a senior Visual Communications student at IDC-IIT.

The action for the next 2 days shifted to the Abridge Solutions’ training center where the Track I and II workshops were to be held. I had opted for Track I and Ravi Pooviah’s class on Information Visualization. It was the most fabulous experience for me and we were given in depth information on the basics of design and evolving concepts through the mind mapping exercise. On the sidelines, I had a long discussions with Ravi on the future of design and the education system in India which prevents raw talent to be recognized and instead considers the marks system to be the final judging factor. It’s a topic for another article from me so I will stop here. Overall, the experience of attending this event was good and looking forward to applying the knowledge at my work place soon.

The second article is by Seth Godin and he outlines 10 principles (or should I say the Ten Commandments!) for creating a “great website”. I liked the very first point that he makes – “Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker”. I second those thoughts completely. Check the article here.