Wave similarities

I went through a presentation given by Lars Rasmussen for Google Wave. And I found striking similarities to a project I had dome with Enthiosys called Prune the Product Tree. The idea of PTPT (as we called it) was giving a roadmap to a product by live collaboration. This collaboration was done using manipulation of images (drag, drop of items in a canvas using SVG/VML) and chats between users. It also showed the online and offline activity of a user had revisions of the stuff he did.

Playback was some thing Luke had in mind. As in the users who see the entire collaborated content could playback the evolution of the product by just the click of a button. The playback would continuously get the data and then playback each and every action taken by the users. These action items may vary from adding, moving, and deleting the items(fruits/leaves) or comments. Cloning and editing of the product tree is also possible.

The difference was that it did not use HTML5 but used the native SVG (firefox/chrome/safari) or VML (IE)

Apache Passenger

This is a small entry which got me and Abhijith confused. We started Apache with Passenger installed as a module after configuring an app from a railscasts episode. Added the entry using the Passenger Pane. But it showed an access denied. Apache was running as a separate user. I gave permissions for the application directory, but still the result was the same. Abhijat then added permissions to the parent directory as well and the applicaion started running. Dont knwo why Apache needs the permissions for the parent directory as well.

Its written here ...

A Collection of Interviews

The last two weeks have been tiring. I was asked to look into the avatar system and see if an html implementation is possible. Now the complexity is not with the creation of the main avatar. This could be done using the combine command available with Image Magick. The problem is that the technique does not give you a perfect image. The preview is also a problem. Either we could create static images with all the possible combinations (eye style one, face style three etc.). Adding of another part is something that creates a problem.

Cartoonizing an image is also something that I was looking into. This is possible by various transformation using Image Magick, but the results where not upto industrial standards. Rotoscope is an application which facilitates the creation of an image which looks like a cartoon. But this does not have a command interface. I went through many algorithms as well which mae this conversation possible. I then stumbled upon an application which used the Open Source Gimp, called GMIC. I did all the required dependency installations using mac ports. But the main installation of GMIC got stuck because of the Imagick++ extension in C++. This comes with Graphics Magick, a C++ extension for Image Magick. The configure did not work even after this installation. I am still not able to compile it. Help required for this.

The other task was to take interviews. Generally for Ruby on Rails and implementation aspects of a architecture. Conducting interviews is a fun thing to do. I got to learn a lot from the interviewees as well. Interaction with people, when to say what, great intellectual conversations etc. Its a little tiring to talk continuously for more than an hour, but its worth it.