Jony C Blog

Page build: Sony Skype Camera (CMU-BR100) and Javascript framework agnostic adapter

Aug 31st, 2011

I helped with this page for Sony GRO team for syndication to different countries. So far I found it on US and Canada. It may be live on other parts of the world.

One of the challenge was to make sure the JavaScript code (tho minimal) works on different frameworks. I wrote a “Agnostic.js” bridge to easily switch between prototype and jquery. I made it intentionally “dumb” so the developer can stub it out for their own framework if needed. It needs to be improved because it was a rush job. I think it works pretty well with jquery and prototype now. I wonder if there’s a place for such a library – Javascript Framework Agnostic adapter. Or it could just be polishing on turd.

Page on:

Posted in: Web Development.
Tagged: front-end web development · linkedin · web development

Project Launch : Resking of Pacific Southwest Technologist Chapter Inc. (Society of Nuclear medicine)

Aug 7th, 2011

by Jony C.

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In April, I launched the redesign of Pacific Southwest Technologist Chapter Inc. (Society of Nuclear medicine) website for the Halogen Lab. One of the technical challenges was to migrate it from the old host sitting on a debian server. We switched the site from Java to PHP. Using the Smarty PHP framework, the code for the site is now separated between the frontend, backend and database. The smarty template system makes it easy for Front End developers (me) to make changes without worrying too much about affecting the backend of the website.

I like the reskining part of the job. I find it very satisfying to see the metamorphosis the site goes through. The biggest challenge had to be educating the clients. The stakeholders at PSTC are generally not very familiar with web development in general. We spent a great deal of time gathering and organizing the needed requirements and explaining why things are done in certain way and taking more time.

Taking the extra time was worth it as we wanted to make sure we have the right result. With the effort, the site went from being a totally amateur to professional and elegant.

Gone with the old, in with the new:

I’m looking forward to doing more of these, especially now that I don’t work on the web anymore. I miss the fast pace and the feeling of accomplishment launching beautiful designs and interactions.

Posted in: General, Web Development.
Tagged: front-end web development · linkedin

B’z

Jul 26th, 2011

by Jony C.

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Last Friday (July 22), the B’z came to perform at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I bought the ticket thinking it’s just another Japanese band. But then I started learning about them and realized I’m really lucky to have a ticket. This band plays in sold-out stadiums and they decide to do some “charity” work and play at the Fillmore – a small 1000-people place. The reason they play there eludes me. Perhaps there’s a novelty for musicians to play at the Fillmore as many international stars played there before.

About the B’z, the band is led by grammy award winning guitarist Takahiro Matsumoto, and singer Koshi Inaba. Their stage presence is excellent, superb, almost too perfect like choreographed. The band was always pitch-perfect. I could not find one mistake or missing note.

The atmosphere of the concert was amazing. No seats. Everyone was jumping and the floor was shaking like an earthquake had struck San Francisco for 2 hours. The Fillmore was small but really cozy venue. It was packed but not too crowded.

Some of my friends say it was the best concert they have ever been to. I definitely feel it was one of the best. I would definitely go to their concert again.

Posted in: Music Related.

A review of Google+’s pros and cons

Jul 7th, 2011

by Jony C.

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It was quite hard to get into Google+. As we speak, the service is exclusive and by invitation only. I missed the initial invitation but got in on the 6/29 when they opened it for a couple of hours.
Good things:

The user interface is clean
The privacy setting is easy edit for every single data field in your profile.
Each post can have different privacy settings
Instead of friend list on Facebook, the “circles” feature makes a lot of sense and much more easy to use with its drag and drop feature.
Befriending/Following someone do not require you to be their “friend”. You can follow someone much like you are on Twitter. But it is reciprocal, you will see more posts from that person.
A really nice feature is the Instant Upload feature on your android phones with Google+. Every photo and video will be sync-ed up to picasa privately and ready for you to share on Google+. This is really handy especially when there isn’t an easy way to upload videos onto Facebook from Android now.
Group video chat called “Hangout” is really good. I especially like being able to watch YouTube videos together. More kitty videos to watch… TOGETHER.
I like Sparks. It is a feature where you can pin up some topics (using keywords) and it will return results from the web.

Bad Things

Re-sharing loophole can be dangerous especially posts are default to be re-sharable. Yes, you can turn it of individually.
Somewhat confusing is the distinction between Buzz and Posts. Your buzz posts do not show up in your post section.
When you first join, it asks if you want to link up your picasa albums. All in the sudden, all your photos in picasa is available to your new friends. I wish there’s a better way to handle this initial link-up.
Sparks is nice but I’d like to be able to share my Google Reader feeds in Google+

Overall, I think Google+ is already a very good alternative to Facebook. It has some really good ideas like Hangout and Spark. I think with it’s strong existing user-base (i.e. gmail), it will definitely be a good contender to the social network giant – Facebook. Now if someone can please make a site that will consolidate all the social networks into one place, I would be much happier.

Posted in: General.
Tagged: facebook · google · linkedin

2011 E3 Recap (June 7-9, 2011)

Jun 24th, 2011

by Jony C.

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It was my very first E3 and it was really interesting. I went hoping to find some interesting games and innovative experiences. I went for only 2 days but I have to say it wasn’t enough time to try everything. I only had enough time to pick and choose what I wanted to try. E3 is like an amusement park. People were lining up to try the consoles or whatever each company had to offer. The obvious big players at E3 were the hardware makers – Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Each of these companies had their own futuristic 2-story structure inside the expo floor. I especially enjoyed Nintendo’s area as they had nice decor pretty girls manning the gaming stations Our area – Sony’s was nice too. They had at least 50+ PS3 on the floor, each loaded with different game demos. I played through a couple of them – Ninja Geiden, Silent Hill..etc.

The most hyped and secretive area had to be PSP Vita. There were about 20 of the PSP Vita inside this closed cubicle. The gaming experience is definitely different and more robust. I can imagine that the new generation of gamers will use all 5 fingers to play hard-core games on this device and doing amazing things.

There was also the Wii-U. However, I had no interest to stand in line for it (not because I’m from Sony but) because I had no idea what the press release said about it and from what I saw, I couldn’t see anything interesting with it, yet.