One problem about uploading videos to sites like YouTube is that if you don't want people to find your video when people do a search on YouTube is that you have to label the video as private. Problem is, once you marked your video as private the only way people can see the video is if they're a member of YouTube and you added them to your friend's list.

Now with MSN SoapBox, you can finally do that. Once marked as private the video doesn't show up in search results anymore, but... anyone who knows the link to your video is still able to watch it though so you dont have to be embarassed about your baby videos showing up someone's search result. Or... videos of your messy table.

Anyway, after some more use of my video camera I realised that I'm probably going to be taking a lot of closeup shots of my kid. So I think I'm gonna need to get a wide angle lens for the camera, and those things just ain't too cheap. Although I do think it should be worth it since it'll be easier to take the many closeup shots that I will be taking. ;)

Isn't this the cutest pair of angry eyes you've ever seen? Maybe when I have more space for more of these things then only I'll get one.

A few days ago I found myself stuck in a jam approaching the toll on the federal highway leading from Subang into Shah Alam. Stuck waiting at the cash lane I decided I might as well just go through the Touch And Go reload lane and reload my exhausted Touch & Go chip on my MyKad.

So after a short jam I reached the toll booth and passed the attendant my card and 20 bucks, after a while it seemed that the reload process was taking longer than usual... than after a minute later she started counting the money in her cash register, I started wondering what the heck was she doing since there was a LOT of cars waiting behind mine.

Then after a while later before I said "WTF are you doing over there?!?" She asked me if I ever reloaded my card at an RHB or Maybank ATM. I answered affirmatively, then she just said that my card can't be used anymore and I had to get a new one.

Just like that, she said my card was useless. Before I could even ask for more information the cars behind started honking! I knew if my card was blacklisted just because I reloaded at the ATM there was nothing much she could do anyway. So I left the toll feeling very puzzled.

Now the question is who do I call about my problem? I think I'm gonna get a very big run around about this.

If I can help it, this is the absolute last time that I'll involve myself in a project that creates a Windows application program for end user consumption as an ISV.

Basically I don't want to involve myself in a Windows application project which will be available to the general public via the internet. The scope of such a project is just too great for an ISV to handle, mainly in the areas of support and testing.

A Windows applicaiton requires much broader test enviroments unlike a web browser which typically just requires you surf your site with the different web browsers.

When something goes wrong and the application crashes, there's just so many things that could be the problem, maybe there's insufficient RAM? hard disk space? Antivirus program? Spyware? As an ISV it's really hard to offer support to the client's target users cause an ISV is typically not in the business of supporting large global deployments.

How's this different from making a program for a client's internal use? For one thing said client would already have it's own IT support infrastructure thus you don't have to worry about the things like helping the user run an antivirus scan, or wheter his RAM is faulty or not. It's much easier to get answers about the system configuration compared to having to get it from your typical home end user.

Yup... this is the last time..

That's the equivalent of saying "We'd like it to work and look exactly the same across every single browser out there" for a Windows application.

It's not a problem writing a Windows application for Win98, .Net 2.0 installs and the programs runs just fine on the OS. The problem is what the client wants the program to do.

A Win98 machine typically has minimal memory, and yet the client wants the UI to look as snazzy as your typical skinned Windows application. So.. no problem I can whip up a skinend application engine, problem is.. what if the user doesn't even have enough RAM to hold all the resources needed to skin the interface?

The worse thing about it is when you try to explain this to the client they just never seem to understand the technical difficulties involved and instead just think the vendor is just trying to worm out of putting more effort into developing the program.