อธิบาย Push-Email

อะไรคือ Push-Email?

การรับส่่ง Email ประกอบด้วยตัวการหลักสองฝ่ายคือ Client และ Server

ในกรณีของระบบโทรศัพท์มือถือ Client คือ โทรศัพท์ Server คือ ระบบเครือข่าย

โดยปรกติ การรับส่งอีเมลล์จะเป็น Pull-service คือ Client เป็นคนติดต่อ Server

เพื่อร้องขอตรวจสอบอีเมลล์ เช่นเดียวกับการที่เราเข้าเวบ Hotmail, Gmail เพื่อ

เชคว่ามีอีีเมลล์ใหม่เข้ามาหรือไม่ ดังนั้นเพื่อให้รับอีเมลล์ใหม่ได้ตลอดเวลา Client

ต้องคอยติดต่อ Server อยู่ตลอดเวลาเป็นระยะ (Fetching, Polling)

ในกรณีของ Push-service เมื่อมีอีเมลล์ใหม่เข้ามา Server จะเป็นคนส่งสัญญาณ

ไปยัง Client ให้ทำการดึงข้อมูลโดยอัตโนมัติ ด้วยเหตุนี้จึงเรียกว่า Push

ข้อดีของ Push คือ Client ไม่ต้องคอยติดต่อ Server เพื่อร้องขอตรวจสอบอีเมลล์

อยู่ตลอดเวลา สำหรับโทรศัพท์หรืออุปกรณ์พกพาถือว่าสำคัญ

ถ้าโทรศัพท์ต้องคอยติดต่ออยู่ตลอดเวลานอกจากจะต้องใช้พลังงานสำหรับส่ง

ซึ่งสิ้นเปลืองแบตเตอรี่แล้วยังสิ้นเปลืองช่องสัญญาณอีกด้วย

นอกจากนี้ยังได้ความรวดเร็ว ณ. เวลาที่อีเมลล์เข้า จะมีสัญญาณส่งไปที่โทรศัพท์

โดยทันที (Real-time)

Touch screen, it seems some don't get it right.

This article was a part of my assignments to analyze the aspects of human interface which needs improvements.

A touch screen is a display that can detect the presence of touch within the display area. The use of touch screen improves productivity as it enhance the navigation of user interface elements. While traditional user interface requires users to activate control elements by using buttons, switches or movable objects, touch screen enabled users to directly manipulate control elements from the display. However the implementation touch screen to achieve the best results in terms of usability, and responsiveness is challenging. Wrong implementation of touch screen, will not only effect the usability, but make the device unpleasant to use.

In this section I’ll describe the case where touch screen made user interface, difficult to use rather than what it should be. Recently the trend of touch interface become a wide spread phenomena. We see cameras, cellphones, computers, gaming devices, etc. equipped with touch screen. Although we see successful cases for example the portable gaming device, Nintendo DS, which enable new ways of gaming experience through a touch screen. An iPhone which utilizes a mu

lti-touch technology, enabled a better way of navigation through scrolling, finger gestures. Now come to the area where the implementation of touch screen is not quite right.

1.1 Touch screen interface for tasks that require precision

Tasks that require precision like volume control, zooming control are better to implement with an interface that users can grab easily and receive p

hysical feedback for corrections. Figure 1 show an example when we overuse the touch screen. Notice that a zoom button is implemented as a UI element in the touch screen. The problem with this design is that users cannot get the feel of how much force requires to move the zoom level into a desired position. Often time users find the touch screen is too sensitive or too irresponsive. In a regular zoom button case, there is a distance between a pressed and unpressed state, which made it easy for one to operate with high level of precision. To improve this, we have to provide physical buttons for task which require precision and not overuse the touch screen. Many manufactures seems to understand this problem, and provide dedicate controls for this function. Figure 2. shows a proper combination of controls having a touch screen for selection with high degree of freedom and physical buttons for selection with fixed functionalities.

1.2 Touch screen interface with improper hardware technology

There are many types of touch screen technologies: resistive, surface acoustic wave, capacitive, infrared, etc. Each of these technology has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example resistive technology requires the use of force and works well with stylus. On the other hand, capacitive technology is highly sensitive and only accept finger touches. Figure 3 shows a phone that tries to combine both finger touches and stylus. The result is a torture user experience. Often times user will find that the system is irresponsive. Since the resistive type of touch screen require the use of force, when use with finger, one has to apply appropriate force to register a click. When a finger is place on top of the UI there is no feedback. Only when you really press it, the action is made. Also there is no way to avoid an unintended click since the action is already carried out. In the case of capacitive technology, we can detect the finger the moment it hits the screen surface. With this we can display a proper feedback.

1.3 Touch screen interface that lacks proper feedback

This one also concern issues in 1.2 but also discuss the design aspects of UI from the software point of view. In order to provide a good user experience, we always need to give a user the feedback so that he/she knows if the selection is correct or not. Figure 4. shows example of a typical selection screen found in ticket vending machine where many buttons are placed next to each other. In some places, machines do not provide visual feedback. For example (a) a user wish to choose D but accidentally press in the area in between D and E. With no visual feedback, the result can be ambiguous. Then (b), A user will then doubt about his selection which causes confusion. Since a touch screen provide no physical feedbacks like real objects, we have to provide visual feedbacks, sound feedbacks, or shake feedbacks to confirm the user. For example when press the button, the button has to change the look as if it is pressed as in (c) so that the user know right away which button was clicked.

関西弁単語リスト1

〜で　 （〜だよ）

〜や （〜だ）

〜やで （〜だよ）

〜やろ （〜でしょ）

〜やんな、〜やな　（〜だよね）

〜やねん （〜だよ）

〜やんか （〜じゃん）

ちゃう （違う）

ほんま （本当）

アカン （ダメ）

ほな、ほんなら　（じゃあ・それじゃあ）

ええ （いい）

うち・わし （私・僕）

おおきに（ありがとう）

知らん （知らない）

〜ん （ない）

えらい （すごい）

Thanks to Ayako who provided this list.

Cooking Oyakodon

Oyakodon 「親子丼」, a bowl of light fluffy egg with chicken and onions on top of a hot rice, is perhaps one of the easiest Japanese meal to cook. To cook this simple menu you will need eggs, chicken, onion, rice, and some Japanese cooking sauces like Shoyu, Mirin and Sake. In Youtube there's a video on how to cook it, fun to watch :)

 

Oyakodon

Oyakodon, dressed with seaweed

Cook with dog!

Cooking show on YouTube

DesignSpree 2 : Unimplemented designs

During 2005, around the 2nd year of my undergrad, a friend asked me to design university notebook covers. At that time I was new to this design industry, so I took a chance in the cultivation process of a college notebook. University students like to come up with their own notebooks which go for sell during the start of a new semester. These notebooks were meant to be sold for fund-raising. We targeted freshmen and those who want to have collectable items with their university's pride. Unfortunately we never did sell these notebooks. I think we invest on something else.  just ran into the Adobe illustrator files of these cover designs and grab three of them here. 

   

another day in thammasat

Each box randomly shows a typical life style, thoughts, etc.

"Hazard station, too many winning 11?" 

"Asian games village, TU Hometown, get electrified by the electric bill"

"Dog is a man's best friend, WHY EAT IT"

TU

That would have fit well with your brand name items.

Write Thammasat

Inspired by the Japanese language, and culture. 

That samurai stuff was what in my mind when I first studied Japanese.

If you are interested in implemented any of that, feel free to contact me but it's going to cost a lot :)

みなさん、ゾウを見たことがある？

タイの代表的な動物と言えばゾウである。毎年、世界中からツーリストがタイで有名なゾウのショーを見に来る。何がそんなにすごいのか。理由はゾウがいろいろなことができるからだ。たとえば、サッカーやバスケットボールができるし、きれいな絵が書けるし、旅行の案内のための乗り物にもなる。

また、２００５年　タイのゾウのキャンプはギネスから「ゾウのグループにより書かれた世界中で一番大きい絵画」として、ワールドレコードを与えられた。この絵画は横２．４０メートル、縦１２メートルのサイズである。http://www.maesaelephantcamp.com/jp/records.html


絵が書けるゾウ／サッカーもできる／ピカゾウ／白ゾウ

タイの歴史によると昔から国とゾウは深い関係がある。特に王様以外持てない「白ゾウ」は一番大切である。多くのタイ人は王様の見つけた白ゾウは多ければ多いほどいいと思っている。また、平和になると信じられている。一方、昔の戦争では、王様はゾウに乗って戦争に向かった。ゾウは王様と国の象徴となった。



白ゾウ／ゾウの戦争／昔の国旗／ゾウに乗って虫を探す

さらに、１８１７年　タイの最初の国旗は赤地の真ん中に白ゾウを描いた。現在はその国旗を使っていないが、ほとんどのタイ人はこのことを知っている。

また、タイ語にはゾウについてのことわざがたくさんある。たとえば、

1. 「ゾウに乗って虫を探す」は無理をするという意味である。
2. 「死んだゾウは葉っぱで隠せない」は悪いことをするとすぐわかるという意味である。
3. 「男性はゾウの前足、女性はゾウの後足のようだ」は男性はリーダーになるべき、女性はフォローすべきだという意味である。

しかし、最近、人の考え方が変わって来たので、ほとんどの人はゾウの前足ようになりたがっているだろう。

最後に、タイのゾウの飼育は、今世界的に絶賛されている。みなさん、タイに行くなら、ぜひ、ゾウをご覧ください。

DesignSpree 1 : Vibrant Colors

DesignSpree is a series of collected thoughts along my graphic design experiences. I'll begin the series with "Vibrant Colors". Perhaps the most important aspect of design is how you choose the colors, set the mood for your overall work. Color is the fundamental beauty. Most of my past works are described as bright and vivid. Here I give you some examples of such works.

   

Colors made arrows visible

A music competition website layout

The project is called Acoustic Party which is organized in 2007 

Singing through time

Add some colors to the photo

Playful login

xQuiz, website layout for login page

Playful blue to attract users. Users are like cats, if you want to attract them you need lure them with playful colors!

I often play with colors by making many geometric shapes and run then together, see how they play with each other. It all began with basic shapes, [bright] colors, highlights and intermediates. 

In the example below the basic shapes are simply alphabet letters 'gx'. Bright colors are saturated pink, blue, yellow, green and other tones in between. Highlights are areas in black that stretch from tails of each letter. Intermediates are shades of grey, to bring more dynamism to the overall structure, alleviate the differences between two dominant colors.

Colors made possible for design to take shape

In conclusion, you can collect ideas through colors. Colors are elements that exist everywhere. You just pick one, two or more, define the tones to go together or simply select them from the  pre-defined color palette. Once the colors are right, the rest will started to come along. It's perhaps the easiest way for idea to take shape. 

New Year's Resolution

Finally it's 2009. This year there is the year of the Ox according to the Chinese calendar. I happened to born on this year so this year is best for me to show my cow pride. Here are this year resolution.

1. Stop spending time reading craps off the Internet, read more research-related articles.　インタネット上で研究関係の記事を調べる。
2. Save some more money (so that I can spend a big time later-- put it this way as an incentive).　高い物を買うため、必ず貯金する。
3. Satisfy 'her' more. She said that I ignored her too often. Perhaps my heart is not reaching to her deep enough.　彼女に十分な愛を与える。
4. Study more Japanese.　日本語が上手になるために、よく勉強しよう！ 
5. Blog more! Share it before it is lost.　おもしろいことがあったら、すぐボロッグする！

That's all I can think of for now. これから、がんばれ！

Adding a nice TeX equations to your Keynote

I just found a way to put TeX equations to my Keynote presentation. Before that I have to rely on either Beamer (writing slides purely in TeX, obviously I'm not geeky enough for this) or using Microsoft Equation with PowerPoint. Since I love how Keynote produce professional high quality slides, I seek a solution to bring the goodness of TeX and the stunning quality of Keynote.

The solution is to use the tool called LaTeXiT, which allows you to compose your equation and drag it down to any desired location of your application.

http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php

Compose the equation and paste it any where you like.

However there's an issue with the latest version (at this moment) 1.16. It rendered extra "pxpxpx..." text on your equation! After searching Google, I found someone was having the same problem as me. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/takashyx/20081209/p1 (explanation in Japanese)

Apparently there is an issue with version 1.16 when LaTeX is installed via MacPort. However the older version 1.15 does not have a problem so I use the 1.15 and it works just fine.

It appears that the link for 1.15 on the maker site is dead, so this site above (in Japanese) suggests to download 1.15 from this link:

http://www.kerodownload.com/index.php?show=fx_info&id=17338&class=3

Thai Student Ski Trip 2009

Ski resort in Nagano (-3C)

On 1-4 January, 2009. TSAJ, Thai Student Association in Japan held a ski trip at Nagano prefecture 「長野県」. The trip was packed with fun! It is the first time for me to ski. 

Indeed to start learning something new is a painful process, but with help of TSAJ staff, the process become enjoyful. For me I'm not very good at it right now. I can dive down the hill and just that, often uncontrollable. 

The fun part of this trip is to get to know everyone and to enjoy the activities being nicely arranged by the staff. We created a Snow Voodoo! At first we were going to craft a Doraemon but later turned into Wall-E and Yoda, ended up in thin we called Snow Voodoo.

I thought that it was going to be very cold. But in fact it is quite hot when you snow, just like you when you are doing an excercise. That's why I slammed into thick snow very often. It actually felt great when slamming to that snow, but to retreat was no easy. 

I'm looking forward to the next ski trip and hope to learn some more trick.  

一緒に滑る？

アルプスみたいな