Hi. You've reached Nigel.in
What you have landed on, possibly inadvertently, is the website of a certain curious character a.k.a Nigel Fernandes
The aim of this page was to serve as a landing point for those of you who want to know a little more about me. The links on the right and left will take you deeper my world, or possibly on to different exciting things.
Its a big web out there and this is just one more street for you to saunter down. I hope you like it.
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About Me
- Name: Nigel Fernandes
- Location: Panjim, Goa, India
Crazy, dancing, programming, Goan.. I'm a computer geek and proud to be one. I program in Java, Ruby and .Net, PHP, Javascript. A lot of my recent work has been about CSS and UI design practices for large scale websites and Agile teams. I still while away hours dreaming up a web startup.
Don't know flash. Don't care either.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
I don't know Flash. Buts thats not what this post about. I'd love to learn flash if time and resources permitted.I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who could not care less about the web. Holy buhjeebus. What a revelation. I'm still reeling.
Sometimes as web developers we get so wrapped up in the our little Internet we forget that most of world could not care less if AJAX trumps Flash or not.
So what made me recall the conversation and brought on this post? Why the Daily Dilbert of course.
Project Joey got great potential.
Have you ever wanted to take the web with you on your mobile phone? Sure you have. So have the folks at Mozilla. For the last couple of weeks I have been giving Mozilla's Project Joey a run through. I'm certainly impressed.What is it?
Joey is a server, a Firefox add-on and a Java midlet that allow you to pass data from Firefox to your cell phone.You can check out an introductory video on how to use Joey here.
Here my top 5 reasons for liking what these guys are upto:
- It worked on my phone. Right off the shelf. Thats seriously cool.
- Its free to use. Free as in air.
- It supports video, audio, images, rss, microsummaries, and of course text
- The UI is pretty painless.
- Its targeting the power internet user who is going mobile. (a.k.a me ;-) )
I want one of these cool t-shirts, in case anyone feels like spreading some love.
Labels: emerging technology., mobile phones, mozilla, project joey
Mozilla's Prism is putting Gmail on your desktop
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Mozilla's Prism platform has got me all excited. Why? For lots of reasons really.Let me quote a line from Mozilla labs blog:
Personal computing is currently in a state of transition. While traditionally users have interacted mostly with desktop applications, more and more of them are using web applications.I could not agree more with that statement. I think that the Prism platform which seeks to extend the desktop user experience to web applications has tremendous potential.
To get less than a 1000 foot overview of how the product formerly known as Web Runner, but now called Prism works, you probably want to see the blog post here.
As an application developer this type of platform is a boon. I'm dreaming of web applications that users can immerse themselves into on their desktop and I don't have to do the complex OS level stuff. Its the step out of the browser so many web developers dream off.There is a lot of competition to get into this market however, and for good reason. One only has to listen to Douglas Crockford's talk on "the state of AJAX" to get a basic understanding of how deep a hole the current web is crawling into.
So how does Prism stack up against the heavyweights of Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight and possibly Sun's JavaFX ?
I don't believe they fall in quite the same space. To quote the Mozilla labs blog again
Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platformMy final thoughts? I'm almost breathless. The web is evolving at such a rapid pace today, that I hardly know where to look. I'm still betting on the Mobile being the next big thing in India, but I'm finding that a bigger limb to be out on than I originally imagined.
Labels: Adobe AIR, mozilla, next big thing, prism, Silverlight
Sukshma.net the TechCrunch for India?
What is Sukshma.net ? In their own words:Sukshma.net is where Anjali Gupta and Santosh Dawara write about technology and business in India.Sukshma originally started out as Santosh's personal blog, but has since grown to be a partnered effort with his BookEazy co-founder Anjali Gupta.
I'm rather lucky to know both of them personally, and I really do believe that they could turn Sukshma into a TechCrunch with an Indian focus. They both have incredible drive and an uncanny ability to track almost everything thats happening in the Indian start up sphere.
Now lets add their ability to network, identify ideas and markets, and their online personae to the mix. The result is a potentially great base to create a blog covering product start ups with a uniquely India focus.
Sure there are already sites in this sphere like Startup Dunia. However Pranav Dharma of Startup Dunia has the fundamental drawback of being based in Ft. Lauderdale, USA. So while I think his blog is a must read, I also believe you must be in India, write about India.
The question remains however, whether or not Santosh and Anjali will take Sukshma in that direction. I certainly hope they do.
Labels: startups india, sukshma, techcrunch
Mobile India is going to kick serious butt.
Friday, November 9, 2007
It is my firm belief that the mobile phone is going to do to India what the web did to the west. Of course its going to use the web in the process, but the channel/interface is going to be that tiny hand-held in your pocket, and not the dinosaur on your table. Apparently I' m not talking out of my hat on this either.So does this mean that the handful of mobile service providers are going to be looking to a decade or more of cash cow herding? Well probably. I still believe that the pie is so huge that there is plenty of scope for companies that build products over the mobile channel.
Santosh covered a few of the early movers like Fring, and Vakow in the Indian market over at Sukshma.net. I still believe this is the 1 millimeter tip of the ice berg thats coming our way.
There are lots more start ups entering this market and they are beginning to explore almost every segment possible. Novix for example is focussed on media streaming, SMSGupshup on sms based broadcast and sms based micro blogging, and others like Ether on providing developer services with a mobile focus.
I also believe that Google and Yahoo and Apple and almost every big name in the business is aware of this. So if you have a great idea that comes under this sphere, you need to get started on executing it. If you can build sufficient IPR or get proof of concept out there, I'm willing to bet you'll be able to pull in some funding. Or at least people talking to you. More that anything I believe this kind of market is just ripe for building a startup with an acquisition focus.Its going to be exciting times.
Labels: mobile phones, startups india, technology