Send Text Messages From Your Email

Use the 10 digit number @ service provider. Following are some examples:

Sprint PCS
10-digit cell phone number @ messaging.sprintpcs.com
(ex.3332221111@messaging.sprintpcs.com)

T-Mobile
10-digit cell phone number @ tmomail.net
(ex.3332221111@tmomail.net)

Cingular Wireless
1 + 10-digit cell phone number @ cingularme.com
(ex.13332221111@cingularme.com)

Verizon Wireless
10-digit cell phone number @ vtext.com
(ex.3332221111@vtext.com)

AT&T PCS
10-digit cell phone number @ mobile.att.net
(ex.3332221111@mobile.att.net)

Comcast
10-digit cell phone number @ comcastpcs.textmsg.com
(ex.3332221111@comcastpcs.textmsg.com)

Cellular One
10-digit cell phone number @ mobile.celloneusa.com
(ex.3332221111@mobile.celloneusa.com)

Bell Mobility (Canada)
10-digit cell phone number @ txt.bell.ca
(ex.3332221111@txt.bell.ca)

Telus
10-digit cell phone number @ msg.telus.com
(ex.3332221111@msg.telus.com)

Fido
10-digit cell phone number @ fido.ca
(ex.3332221111@fido.ca)

Sprint
10-digit cell phone number @ messaging.sprintpcs.com
(ex.3332221111@messaging.sprintpcs.com)

Rogers Wireless
10-digit cell phone number @ pcs.rogers.com
(ex.3332221111@pcs.rogers.com)

Bell Atlantic
10-digit cell phone number @ message.bam.com
(ex.3332221111@message.bam.com)


enjoy ;)

My website - www.paramacro.com

My new website www.paramacro.com is up.

Skills:
• Photoshop, Dreamweaver
• Illustrator, InDesign
• After Effects & Animation
• Motion Capture
• Motion Graphics
• Adobe Flash
• Papervision 3D, Physics Engine
• Motion Capture
• PHP, ASP .NET
• HTML, CSS, XML
• Adobe AIR
• ActionScript 3
• JavaScript
• Database, SAD, SQL

Services:
My services include Flash Programming, Web Development, Web Design, Graphic Design, Print Design, Logo Design, Visual Design, Motion Graphics, 2D Animation, and etc.

Social Media - Wayne MacPhail

On February 20, I had an opportunity to hear Wayne MacPhail in my class at Sheridan. This was one of the best presentations in my life, very nicely presented, and very informative.

Wayne is a cutting-edge content producer for print media and the web and has been a magazine editor, a photographer and a newspaper writer/editor.

Mr. MacPhail’s topic was “Mashing Up Social Media”. He started with the introduction of Web 2.0 and discussed the following four concepts:

● Tagging
● Social Bookmarking
● RSS Feeds
● Embeded Codes

So, what is Social Media? It is media of the people, for the people, and by the people. The typical media is TV and radio where people are passive viewers, but online Social media is open information sharing in an online community where ordinary people become an active participant by collaborating and becoming part of it by contributing in its creation, e.g. Facebook, YouTube, etc.

The top social networks are MySpace and Facebook, to name a few. The way you can use social networks for your own benefits is to setup a profile and reach out to your customers. Once you have built a good solid network of friends you can then post comments on people’s pages to increase your earnest or become friend for their friends. You can then also post bulletins or you can communicate through your profile image; any sort of contest or something like that going on. You can market yourself and can further increase the awareness for your company.

Social Media as a marketing platform: As a marketing platform televisions and radio have been used for over decades, where as social media has been gaining recognition only from the past few years, but a very strong recognition. Social Networks like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube are not just network of people, but actually marketing platforms, where people or companies are doing business, said Mr. MacPhail.

In order to be successful in social media market, Wayne used the following terms:

● “You don’t use a social network, you become part of it“
● “Contribution is participation”
● “Social media encourages engagement & evangelism”
● “Social media: is local first; is viral; is granular; is a conversation, not a broadcast; is mobile; wants to be free”

Following are the social media Related Websites Mr. Wayne MacPhail showed:

Jaiku: Social networking and micro-blogging service, purchased by Google, that lets you continually broadcast (lifecast) yourself by sending personal updates via phone or computer, similar to Twitter.

Mogulus: Broadcast online, live, from a web connection.

Sprout: Create sophisticated, dynamic and interactive multimedia content online.

Twitter: Social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send updates to Twitter website via a SMS from a mobile phone. Like, what you are doing and what other’s are doing.

TwitterVision: For a graphic sense of the implications of Twitter, there’s TwitterVision, which combines Twitter and Google Maps.

Utterz: Social networking and micro-blogging that lets you post in voice, video, pictures and text from your mobile phone to your blog or social network page.

Qik: Stream videos directly from your mobile phone to the Web.

Digg: Community-based news article popularity website. Readers can view all of the stories that have been submitted by fellow users. Once a story has received enough "diggs", it appears on Digg's front page.

GoogleReader: RSS Feeds reader.

Del.icio.us: Social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Note: Jaiku, Twitter, and Utterz are similar.

Relevant Links:

● SocialMarker
● Social Media – Web 2.0
● Content, Life & Everything
● Did You Know?
● Social Bookmarking in Plain English
● Android

Adding Inspiration to Innovation

On Friday, February 8, we made a field trip to Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and later we got an opportunity to see Steve Mann’s Hydraulophones, which were quite interesting. I’ll talk about the two in this write-up.

In the first part of the trip Mr. Brian Porter, Senior Director of New Media Resources, showed us the digital gallery at ROM. As soon as we got seated we started exploring the touch screen display in front of us. On the screen we had the option to explore either the Ancient Egyptian or the Canadian Heritage. In terms of technology it did not appear very pioneering, but at the same time it was a great thought of having digitizing the ancient pieces at the ROM into 2D and 3D imaging etc. Brian talked for a while and gave us a brief introduction of himself and his work at ROM. Later he showed us an education film based on Canadian Heritage on a three projector – widescreen which was made entirely by the new media team at the ROM.

Next, we moved on to the new Dinosaur Exhibit at ROM. Well, the purpose was not to see the skeletons of the Dinos, but to see the interactive displays (touch screen, gesture technology, etc) which let people explore more about those extinct species. The touch screens were not multi-touch, but had the interface design kind of like Apple's iTouch.

Then we moved to a sound studio and met a multimedia guy named Zack. He showed us the audio mixing and 3d video editing/production stuff he does. He had a nice little office full of computers, wires, an audio mixer etc, where he was utilizing his artistic and technical skills. That job is perfect for him and he loves it, Zack said.

In the second part of the field trip we visited inventor, pioneer, professor Steve Mann, known as world’s first cyborg. He was having a wearable multimedia computer with video processing capability and wireless Internet connection on top of his head that, he says, allows him to view the world differently than the ordinary people. You can watch a video here where Steve talks about his work in more detail.

Another thing Steve showed is called Hydraulophone, a water pipe organ flute. It was very inspiring to see that water piano being played. The very first moment I could not believe that it was water that produced the sound. I have never seen any thing like that.

Overall, I it was fun and very inspiring to visit those places and it was actually the best field trip for the course Multimedia Pioneering. Like it’s said: Inspiration = Innovation; hopefully this inspiration may result in some innovation.

Silverlight!!!

What is Silverlight?

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.

What Wikipedia says:

Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin that allows web applications to be developed with features like animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback - features that characterize a rich internet application. Silverlight competes with products such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Shockwave, Java FX, and Apple QuickTime. Version 2.0 of Silverlight (currently under development) will provide additional capabilities, including advanced interactivity features. Significantly, version 2.0 allows developers to use .NET languages and development tools when authoring Silverlight applications.

Watch the showcase.

Going Mobile with James Eberhardt

On January 23, 2008 we had James Eberhardt as our speaker, who talked about mobile technology. Currently he works at Design Axiom. Previously, he was the Director of Technology at Marblemedia, and instructor for FlashLite at George Brown College in Toronto.

James started with introduction of various mobile terms like SMS, MMS, GPS, and GPRS etc. For information on these terms you can visit GSM World. He showed us various mobile devices ranging from cell phones to PDAs and made the comparison of today’s mobile technology with the technology available twenty years ago.

Mr. Eberhardt showed us a mobile applications on his Nokia N95 where he could upload images directly to his flickr.com account using GPRS network and if the mobile phone is GPS enabled then it could tell you the location on GoogleMaps, where the picture was clicked. The only bad part of it was its expense of use; almost $20 for uploading 1MB of data. He talked about another GPS based application called Sports Tracker which is specifically designed for athletes for the track of information like speed, distance and time.

Another interesting thing James showed was the DataMatrix 2D bar codes (Shot Code, Data Matrix, and QR Code). Like traditional bar codes they are designed to read some encoded information, like for instance an encoded link to some website. So, how does it work! you scan the bar code using your camera phone. The software designed to handle the bar codes then decodes the bar code to usable format and then points to that particular link or website. This kind of setup is already being used in Europe and Australia.

When it comes to testing and installation then James recommended Nokia phones. Even personally I would recommend Nokia phones too as they support both Java and Symbian applications. I would compare Nokia phones with Windows and Sony Ericsson phones with Mac. Nokia = too many application available like for Windows :), Ericsson = good interface, but just supports the Java applications :(. But the latest Nokia phones like N Series are my favourite, especially N95 and N70. I miss my N70. I had it when I was in India and it was like my mobile computer which used to let me do almost all the daily tasks that I used to do on my computer like, chat on Yahoo, search on Google, GoogleMaps, etc. Telecommunication services are quite cheap in India. Unfortunately I did not bring my phone to Canada thinking that it won’t work because of the difference in the band frequency and thinking that I’ll buy a new multimedia phone, but unfortunately Canada doesn’t have much of multimedia phones, none of the N Series phones, I guess and iPhone has not been launched yet. India is way ahead, but still there are people out there who think…ahh…..India!!!........as if India has animals living in it. Well, who cares!!!........... Anyway…let’s get back to the topic…..

For downloading mobile applications and other mobile stuff I find www.mobango.com very useful.

James concluded the presentation by talking about FlashLite, which is currently supported by almost all the mobile devices today. He showed, how easy is it to virtually test Flash Lite applications using the Adobe Device Central. FlashLite supports ActionScript 2, but unluckily even the new Flash Lite 3 does not support ActionScript 3 at this time. Lucky are the people who know ActionScript 2.

Cracking Interactivity with Simon Conlin

On Thursday, November 29, 2007 our guest speaker named Simon Conlin came for the final guest lecture for the course Multimedia Pioneering at Sheridan College, Canada.

Simon Conlin is the co-founder of Flash In The Can, also known as FITC. FITC (www.fitc.ca) is a Canadian company that produces engaging design and technology events that inspire, educate and challenge the best new media designers and developers from around the globe. Simon is also a consultant for the technologies related to gesture interactivity.

Simon originally has a music background, but few years ago he developed a taste in multimedia and now he is a pioneer for today’s and future’s interactive/new media technology. Simon had an accent and I guessed it was British and yes he moved to Canada like five years ago.

In the beginning Simon directed us to a website called www.webcamtastic.com where the users could take pictures using their webcams and deform the pictures in different forms to create abstracts.

Simon had a list of YouTube links to share; I have included the links of the ones I liked at the end of this entry. Right after the introduction he played a video by Zach Booth Simpson, an installation artist who has a biology background. He connects science with interactivity and creates interactive art using projectors, cameras, and shadow detection algorithms under the name Mine-Control.

Simon gave us tips, how we can combine our learning form the Interactive Multimedia course with our past background and future interest or knowledge. I think he was some how relating to Zach Booth Simpson, biologist turned artist and himself as well, musician turned multimedia pioneer.

Next, Simon showed us a video of the interactive stage setup for George Michael’s concert with real-time audio analysis and position tracking by a German design team called Meso. In layman terms I would say it’s like the media player’s visualizations, but at the same time it’s a lot different than just a visualization. I’m impressed how technology is dramatically changing the way things are or thing were. Wow! Make the floors and walls come alive.

At last Simon showed us a multi touch interactive wall where the user could play with musical instruments with the motion capture of their hands. It reminded me of the GestureTek’s trip where we saw a similar kind of interactivity and/or game.

I liked the video where Zach Booth Simpson talked about art and interactivity.

It was a brief and quick lecture and was more of YouTube videos than the actual speaker speaking. At last Simon ended up forwarding his list of YouTube links so that we could explore more on our own.


Related Links:

http://www.mine-control.com/
http://naturalinteraction.org/
http://www.meso.net/
http://www.adamchapmanart.com/

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuCvGeVcxlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plNDHfzTBn0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul1CX_PkfaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kIHlC-8Yg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-NRdyUx8Lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaKehq6qsdY