You wouldn’t want to miss their party because they are giving away registration codes for the browsers. And yeah, I think Opera is cool (especially without ad banner). It is more stable and faster than my Firefox. To join the party, just visit their site.
Luc Jacquet directed a touching documentary about Emperor’s penguins journey to their breeding ground : La Marche de l’empereur. It reveals their unique and mysterious breeding habits when those penguins left the ocean and march inland into the heart of Antartica for mating. It is a dramatic story about love and sacrifice as they took a number of life-threatening journeys to ensure survival of their species. The scene and the shots were magnificent, making the story much more than a documentary. If only the original scores were as good (Hm, perhaps they did in the Morgan Freeman’s version)
This morning, Macromedia officially launched their latest software suites, Studio 8. Attending and officiating the launch were Jim Guerard (VP Product Management and Product Marketing), Mike Downey (Flash Product Manager), and Jen Taylor (Dreamweaver Product Manager). The event started at about 930 plus with Studio 8 video launch and Jim’s keynote, highlighting their focus theme of “Essential, Expressive, and Efficient”.
The excitement started to build up when Mike introduced the new Flash 8 (code named - eight ball). He demonstrated the new filter panel which allow Flash designers to create effects, such as drop shadow and blur, on run-time. This means less bitmap data required in designing Flash animation. The effects are dynamic and can be tweened, which making it easy to add “depth” into the design for example blurred photos when out-of-focus. Blend modes, an important feature for creating realistic images in Photoshop, are now available natively in Flash. Other improvements are script assist (historically known as beginner mode for ActionScript), text rendering (which use color instead of grayscale anti aliasing). Online video is going to be much more bigger thing in the future, with integrated video compression, improved user friendliness in creating Flash Video, and better image quality with the same file size. Finally, file upload and download are supported (unfortunately, Mike did not show any demo on this feature).
After a short break, Jen introduced new features on Dreamweaver 8, which are pretty neat: better CSS development support (border, tool tip, new CSS media panels and properties), better XML integration (with XPath) and better Code development (Code collapsing). I was hoping to see CSS template that GoLive has to simplify CSS layout development, which unfortunately, could not be found in this release. I guess, I still have to live with CSS tips and tricks to resolve browser incompatibility bugs.
Anyway, I was inspired. With macromedia refocusing Flash back into designer community, expect to see much more interesting stuffs: videos, realistic games, animations, and so on. Can’t wait to use them when they shipped mid September. For the time being, I think I’m going to enjoy the polo shirt that I had after answering one of the question there 
Update: FusionAuthority has a pretty good review on Studio 8.
Pandora Media is an online music recommendation service which suggest and perhaps help you discover new music you’ll love (I did!). After you indicate initial artist/song that you’d like to hear, Pandora will create sort of radio-station that plays songs which share similar musical characteristics with your preference. The rating comes from professional musicians who listened and categorized those songs, thus the recommendation do work pretty well. It is Flash-based, thus you do not have to download or install anything to listen. The invitation-only preview of Pandora is currently free, but once it is publicly launched, Pandora will charge subscription fees.
Talking about subscription, I decided to upgrade my Flickr account and pay for it. It now allows me to upload 2GB of images per month with unlimited storage. It’s about time to upgrade since Flickr would not allow me to see beyond the latest 200 images (it is not deleted tho). Expect to see lots more of images there.
Meanwhile, Google is pretty active in launching their new tools these few days - Google Desktop is officially launched with distinctive Sidebar feature. Seems cool, but the behaviour is quite unpredictable, making me uncomfortable using it. The other one is Google Talk, an internet messenger service. The interface is clean and simple (as expected from Google). To attract users, Google Talk lists the initial contact based on user’s Gmail address book to simplify invitation process. It seemed Google Talk have no support for emoticons yet (Kinda disappointed since emoticons is one of the key factors that attract me choosing which IM to be used).
Quick updates: just realized that www.tanutama.com is not directed to this blog. I removed the redirection so that I could access my wiki. Photos of wedding attended in National Archive, Jakarta are now available at my Flickr account. If you have any Flickr account feel free to leave comments (or add me to your contact). If you don’t use Flickr, well, you must. At least visit their “Explore” section - really beautiful photos there. Cheers. Back to work.
Gosh! Apple launched one gorgeous mouse design - the Mighty Mouse. It features a tiny Scroll Ball that allow user to navigate around along with touch-sensitive technology concealed under shell. Click, roll, squeeze and scroll. The design managed to combine good features from previous input device technologies: the flexibility of trackball, sensitivity of touchpad, and simplicity of trackpoint. Elegant! Except, I prefer unchained Mighty Mouse…
This morning my website was hacked and perhaps sneaked a malware called JS_PSYME.AK. The index page was redirected to a strange domain somewhere in japan. Fortunately, things are restored pretty quickly by my hosting provider 
- Anyway, I hope noone was affected by the incident - but if you do, you might want to check the link to remove the malware. Sorry about that 