mmmmmm, this one looks good

Check out the official Lego builder nicely done in Flash,  The way you assemble a structure reminds me a lot of the Urban Renewal Kit for Simcity. I used it some years ago to build a set of charateristic buildings for my Rotterdam simulation on Sim City 2000.

Allways looking for Groove information i stumbled upon this interesting article on the potential of software.
Nice quote: "If you want to do stuff that real people care about, you have very little competition these days. And again, I think it takes a tremendous lack of imagination to think that all of the good ideas have already been implemented or "locked-down" by Microsoft, AOL, or IBM. "

Did have a wonderful conversation with Daniel Shurman yesterday about Delft, public spaces, Groove, designprocesses, tailoring and much more. Seems he shares a lot of my fascinations and i'm looking forward to his visit next month and the tomatosoup-bar he wil be showing me :-)

We have been betatesting two Groovetools this last week. our CAD viewer and a Architect0r tool for Groove. Getting lots of positive feedback. I'm pleasantly suprised about the speed of the tools within Groove when navigating and/or designing together.

Tim notified me of the fact that today the NRC, a well respected national newspaper in Holland, published an article (dutch only) of a quarter of a page about the Woonplanner, a piece of software we developed more then 1,5 year ago making it possible for people to tailor their new houses custommade. They reported some small bugs (we knew about)  but the overall opinion was quite positive. Nice to read in the papers that the new version is coming soon ;-)

I like the style of this visual explanation of way XML is connecting businesses made by a company called Xplane.

FlashMX 3D Engine and info about the creation of Components for FlashMX , thanks to Protocol7

While i was getting my hands dirty in our new house , Harm reinstalled my vaio, i'm a known computer abuser so a fresh install was very needed. mmmm, feels like a new comp. Most important i can run Groove again on my Vaio !!!! i'm downloading all my spaces when i write this..... oops Tim invites me.. :-))

More useful SVG links
      - This CAD package has a SVG exportfunction, DWG to SVG :-))
      - A comprehensive introduction to SVG
      - SWF - SVG comparison chart

Protocol7 is doing a very interesting experiment on Blogging , OPML and SVG. btw: They borrowed an interface originally designed in Flash but the SVG version works as smooth as the original. btw: they also have a very usefull page with SVG links.

Special date for me: Today we had a big family meeting because on this day ,100 years ago, my grandmother was born. She married with my grandfather that had the same birthday and they had 11 children. My grandfather died before i was born on his birthday and my grandmother died just a couple of days before her 90th birthday. Her funeral took place exactly 10 years ago. Loved her very much........

Sweet surprise when i just checked Tim's weblog, he posted some screenshots of the Groove Archtitect0r-tool under development.

Every now and then a new 3D file explorer attracts my attention. This particular one, 3DOSX is made for OSX and it looks just gorgeous. Would like to see it in action.

Just downloaded the new 4.0 Beta release of the Cortona VRML Plugin.  Interesting new features: Multitextures, Collision Detection XML Based skins and better Flash support. Good news for our Architect0r tools.

Very nice online application made with flash:  Face Composer

Microsoft's vision on the evelution of the monitor: Mira.
Mira devices are detachable wireless monitors that can be used up to 100 meters from a PC . They use 802.11b wireless technology and have rechargeable batteries that will last for 4 to 6 hours before having to be recharged. One company has even developed a rugged, waterproof version for use in the bathroom or garden :-)

Review of a FlashMX seminar on this Blog dedicated to Flash + Radio. Highlights:

• proper dynamic drawing api, create movieclips with createEmptyMovieclip(), draw in them, attach masks to them, all the good shit - dynamically load jpeg & mp3 (why no gif? Who can say?)
  
• .swf files up to 50% smaller due to snazzy new compression (demo of one going from 38k to 21k just by exporting in MX)
  
• massively faster XML, 100x faster on some tasks (for real!)

Groove's forum has been updated, new look and features. If you're gonna check it out, read this posting that gives credits to Ashok, Andy and Hugh for their steady flow of excellent writings on the old forum.

You never know when this might come in handy : 0110100001100101011010000110010100000000

Still trying to grasp the concept and potential of Microsofts .NET ? Check out this site to see an impressive example called Terrarium.  It is a multiplayer ecosystem game developed using the .NET Framework. Developers can create their own creatures and add them into the game on their own client machine. Teleporters on each client transfer the creatures between clients in the Terrarium peer-to-peer network.

Tip from Nico:
A series of drawings from an isometric perspective, Historical events in the style of a computer game.

I like the new animations Nico just made for the different sections of Suite75 website. "News" is my favourite.

Today Jules Verlaan has started a Dutch Weblog about the building industry. His website Bouwweb was the first Dutch building Portal way back in 1995.

Not new, but becoming more and more useful in Reallife. View and edit CAD drawings on your PDA: New version PocketCAD is available, 4.0 allready

Hugh Pyle's site: www.cabezal.com , although closed down, continues to be a "must have" groovelink. Lean and mean :-). Just discovered the papers, guess i got some reading to do....

Since announcement last monday, more Flash MX details are being dicussed:
            Another new Class : LocalConnection 
            MX with XML and SOAP? 
               Flash for PDA and Playstation 2   
               Back Button

mmmmmm, interesting thoughts on the comeback of Apple.

If you're interested in what the new Groove CD-Packages probably will look like: Check out this link i just dug up.

Another screenshot of the CADviewer under development by Tim . Nice  new buttons :-) I like the drawingspace concept more and more the longer i think about it.

Just been to the clinic with Machteld for a checkup. URK is growing fine just like Machteld ;-) . 2 weeks  from now they will make a new echoscope. Here is a snapshot of a few weeks ago.  btw: It's a Boy......

Technology prediction by Ray Ozzie in this article:
"If we continue on the current trajectory, e-mail will become the place where you receive stuff from people you don't know, and Groove and other collaborative environments will be where you work with people you know."

For Jules: Why Google loves Weblogs.

Tim is doing some final work on the Suite75 CADviewer for Groove. He posted a new screenshot on his Weblog. It's looking good can't wait to see the new autosizing feature in action.

For who it may concern, more techie flashlinks: 
     -XML in FlashMX and Flashplayer 6 dramatically speeded up. 
     -Senior Macromediadeveloper explains what's improved.  
     -Useful software for developing Flash Applications.

Macromedia today announced Macromedia Flash MX, the latest version of the Macromedia Flash development environment, which will usher in a new generation of rich Internet content and applications.
At first glance no talks about SVG support or extensive XML enhancements. Maybe more information is revealed after the official launch at March 14. Read a review at ZD-Net. 
Interesting new feature:  Shape Drawing API
"Create sophisticated vector graphics in real-time using ActionScript. Advanced developers have direct access to shape drawing functionality, allowing dynamic vector graphic creation with Macromedia Flash Player 6"

2 newsitems for optimists (like me) to dream about : Possible succes in cold nuclear fusion (dutch) & Mars probe finds evidence of water.

Check out this beautiful piece of flash called "The Man Project"

Information wants to be worthless by Bruce Sterling. 

A nice graphical XML editor made in Flash by John Wehr. Lots of ideas popping up how to use this kind of functionality in the Architect0r series. Direct feedback of your design decisions in XML-tree could be very useful in some more complex tools. 
btw checked out fla and it seems like importing XML is not working. I'm sure Tim would know how to solve this.

Today i saw the new iMac for the first time in Reallife. It's slightly bigger then i expected but it looks sooo good. If the there would be a Groove version for MacOs X this surely would be my next computer.

Doing some work on the documentation for Groove Developers Conference that will held in Rotterdam in the end of April in Hotel New York.  Early Groove pioneers from all over the world will be attending. Looking forward to the event....

And here is another nice backgrounder about Ray Ozzie and Groove. Again some references to Ray's shower habits and his need for waterproof writing paper.

"The brilliant programmer who created Lotus Notes and Groove, solved some of the company’s most vexing problems while naked." :-) Read more...

Interesting stuff about on using SVG & XML for maps and technical drawings. Have been tracking SVG for some time and i see the benefits of XML based vector graphics but examples i checked out allways feel slow and chunky compared to Flash. Part of it is probably the lack of good software that atracts graphic designers like Macromedia is making for the SWF format. It would be interesting to see what XML enhancements there will be in Flash 6.0 and if there will be some SVG support to have the best of both worlds.