Words Going Green, via Dictionary.com

St. Patrick's Day is passing by, and in time for that Dictionary.com published a list of words used to describe hues of the colour Green. As fascinating as that was, I wanted to see the colours side by side, and for that I started Google searches and used ColorZilla, a colour picker I use with Firefox to aid in website design. I switched to the image search tab on Google, and a lot of the words produced close matching colours, as you might also see from the shades picked out below.

Click on the colour names below to see the interesting history dictionary.com has dug up!

Emerald

Chartreuse

Kelly Green

Olive

Hunter

Paris

Harlequin

Hooker's

Celadon

Jade

Mint

Myrtle

Citron

Brunswick

Shamrock

User Experience Notes from Twitter

I wonder if there are enough opinions on Twitter of various products and services, starting from this one by Sarah Silverman:

Amazon I love u but just b/c I bought a trash can doesn't mean i need all ur latest trash can news. I got one. I'm set
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) December 27, 2013

Or this:

WhatsApp is down. #ThanksZuckerberg
— VIKAS (@ivikaspawar) February 22, 2014

#thankszuckerberg is usually a friendly place in general however.
 

A bit too generic, but true nonetheless:

You don’t know what a bad software experience is until you’ve had a good software experience.
— Chris Pirillo (@ChrisPirillo) February 27, 2014

And then I land on the #UXFail, which has more ways to avoid UX Fails than actual fails, like this complicated mess:

Hm… "No"? @Dlink #uxfail pic.twitter.com/wqn1MPBakT
— Sven Kaemper (@svenkaemper) March 12, 2014

Or this lack of communication:

Why does @SlideShare have no support channel? How are users supposed to report issues? #uxfail #rageface
— Kelly Ann  (@designspoke) March 11, 2014

 Proper customer support can of course go a long way, or lead to books like What Would Google Do? or such tweets:

I just called 132058 for tech support for @msau windows 8. Operator spoke in a rude tone and suggested I contact manufacturer @Sony #fail
— Nurse Ivan (@mat_thommo) March 12, 2014

Pick Me! Highlights of a day going through resumes

Unlike the last time where I had our HR person sort out a spreadsheet for me from the CV/Resumes we received for our Design team, I took on the task myself this year and I am not using a spreadsheet yet. The situation is a bit different this time, where we really want to pick people who will show leadership from the start, unlike last time where we had planned to train people up.

Personality
Its unusual to see many CVs where the personality of an applicant is showing through, or showing through in a good light. I am looking for a spark from a piece of paper and in some cases, it was very apparent, and to achieve that, the formatting: the choice of types, colors and layout, and the choice of words can go a long way.

Formatting
For some time now, I was wondering why no one tries to make a CV that breaks the mold of the black on white, tables and grids, and this time around we received one which did so. Using colors and watermarks, and styles derived from Web 2.0, that applicant made an impression on me. I could criticize the overall design, like the use of the applicant's face outline as a watermark and other things, but, seeing the attempt was enough to make me think this one might be someone worth paying attention to.

Words
One obvious issue is the really poor choice of words and typos. It can start from not modifying the "Objective" section of your CV from the first time you made it, so that when you apply for a web development team, your objective doesn't say you'd like to cure cancer with robotics. Other people, partly due to the cultural traditions possibly, include too much in their "Personal" section - e.g. - "Height: 5 fit" (yes, 'fit'!). The worst typo however is CAREER spelled as CARRIER. Another application said "Expected Salary: Handsome", which I didn't know what to make of. Do I get a handsome salary, or does my boss? Does this applicant deserve the same?

Focus
One applicant however impressed us in this regard. This particular applicant's list of experiences and expertise had all the keywords that I had in mind. Whether this applicant actually made the effort to understand what the team does and what we're looking for, I can't say for sure, but I would be pressed to believe it was so! On top of that, there was a very confident smiling photo, where usually I am looking at the grim expressions and awkward head positions of passport photographs. I don't know if a standard was set for CVs to include photographs, but I don't think those passport ones really work.

All in all, my work is not done yet. Next comes the interviews and tests to make sure they're the right people, the right fit for the team. Wish me luck!

   tips 

• Check your application time and again to make sure you are covering all the bases.
• Have a template, but modify it for an application to address their requirements
• Its worthwhile to have a few people you know are good with English, to review your CV before sending it out 
• Spell check!
• Spend some time on the formatting to create a readable and impressive CV

Taking Notes is Important, Even if from the Social Media!

We have one dangerous trait. We don't mind mediocrity, and make excuses (some may call it providing logic) to let it pass and persist. It is not a trait that we encourage in schools, where getting better grades is of supreme interest to parents, and most teachers do their best in that regard as well. Somehow, its a very visible phenomenon around us.

The author of What Would Google Do?, tells how his bad experience with a Dell laptop led him to vent on his blog, and how that subsequently led to a large following of people with similar experiences. Though that led to highlighting how Google searches for Dell's laptops used to bring out his blog post, its also an indication of the nature of 'social' interactions that the Internet makes possible. In this case, the customers became social on the issue of how Dell laptops were under-performing and it led to serious loss of value for the manufacturers. Almost all good companies now have extensive support channels on the Internet to receive customers' issues and follow up on them. Its what builds a strong brand.

Internet users in Bangladesh are also seeing a rise in the number of services/products that are accessible to them online. More than that, they are also seeing the rising number of advertisements from neighboring India on satellite television, and they are in a position to realize how long a way there is to go. When and how the private web organizations will spring up, probably depends on how soon we can ensure a solid, secure payment/delivery mechanism for products and services here. As far as public services go, the much drummed about 'Digital Bangladesh' is still sluggish and seems misguided.

Not going into the issue what kind of companies were given the projects, and if that is the cause of the 'mediocrity' in this area, I would like to highlight how the involved organizations could take notes on what is happening there from the web itself.

We can all feel that a taskforce might be scanning our social media for anti-government material, or anti-patriotic materials, which might incite violence and other forms of undesirable events. But are they scouring the materials to understand where improvements might be made. That sort of thing, probably falls low on agendas now, and there lies the pity.

I wrote a post down myself on the failures of our 'Digital Bangladesh' to make something that really elevated the quality of a service. Meanwhile, I found my friend pointing out that the Digital Bangladesh website, was actually a screenshot! Well, isn't that a shame! Its been that way for months, since my previous post was made in February of this year.

One point from my post above was to broaden the activities of the post office in carrying paper around to reduce massive amounts of people doing so individually. I found another blogger that pointed out Bangladesh Post Office also has a website, and that its been hacked! Meanwhile, another blog reveals (or confirms) that having computers doesn't necessarily make our lives better, and also reports on an actual expansion of services there.

Recently I went to the website of the National ID project and saw "Nick name" being spelt as 'Nike name". Nothing is more mediocre than a spelling mistake on such a website. The purpose of my visit was to find out how to change my address on the card, and that page had links to two missing forms I should fill out! However, today the files were available for download.

Some of us dearly want our government offices to change the culture of go-slow, or illegal costs, and most people don't know who will really hear their stories and make those changes. Some of us haplessly keep writing on our Facebook, and our blogs about what we're suffering from. All we need now, is someone to take note of them.

How do you like Google Plus so far?

A friend of mine believes that a lot of sites and companies are now using the g+ button more than the f one that has taken the online social sphere by storm since its inception. Who will take over as the king here, I don't know.

What facebook had over the others (at the time Hi5, Friendster, MySpace, etc) according to me was their simple interface. I disliked MySpace totally for the lack of ease-of-use, and Hi5 and MySpace was okay. Facebook has shown its agility in trying out things and improving their interfaces very quickly (discounting a few bad experiments). It would be anyone's guess that Google would not fall behind in that! The current Gmail interface is useful and the G+ interface got a makeover recently too. However, I am not too happy with it!

Most of what I go over next will refer to this diagram below, where I've marked the areas on the Google Plus page as Main Area, Chat, Circle/Not-in-Circle, and Choices. Click on it to view a larger version.

Focusing on the Main thing
My first point of discomfort, is that the main area sits on the left. Many websites center their content, as that aligns more with where the viewer is probably sitting. With widescreen-equipped laptops, this gets worse. With the Cirlces-bar on its right, combined with the Chat portion, the main area seem to occupy very little space here. The Chat part is static - it doesn't scroll, but the Circles bar does. So, once you scroll down a little, there is an emptiness beside the main area. That makes me wonder, exactly how important that bit of information about who is/isn't in my circles actually is to the user. In the Choices bar, you have an option to edit your Circles, and this info could easily go in there, or in the notifications panels.

Choices
I also wonder if the Choices bar could've rested better on the right hand side. One of my theories is that since I use the  mouse or trackpad with my right hand, it feels like I am going a long way to access those options. (I wonder if its the opposite for left-handed computer users. Never really noticed. A bit disgraceful that I didn't).

A Shuffle?
One recommendation, would be to shuffle things about a bit:
 Choices  - Move to just left of the Chat bar
 Circles - Move to the far right, but modify it too - Coming after the next image.
 Main - While doing the shuffle, why not make it a bit wider?!

If the left hand list of circles could be used to filter the feeds from all the contacts, then that'd be a nifty little feature. This is a quick shuffle to see if the usability of the plus interface can be improved. Use of colors here could also emphasize the options on a single post, or the area where the feeds are coming. The use of subdued colors is a bit too much on the page.

Usability is just one aspect of a software. Unfortunately, if we think of Google Plus as being up against Facebook, many other factors need to be considered. Plus doesn't put advertisements around us, but the ones on Facebook aren't actually a bother. Facebook has lots of Apps - is that a plus?!  Then if my friend is right, Plus is finally getting the backing of the online community. Thats the number one thing in this market. As I was telling another friend, if all my friends decided to hang out in Cafe A, its no use if I ended up in Cafe B!

Digital Bangladesh: A Review

I think it took a year after it was announced (4 Mar 2010 as per Google/The Daily Star) that people could make GDs online (A general diary) to announce that this service is being scrapped, for it was not working. This news, however, was within the news of the Police HQ being opened for anyone to make GDs since many reports of lack of cooperation from the police had come up! Instead of curing that ailment, we tried going digital, and we now opened up the HQ for a process that should remain decentralized.

The purpose of any product, including software, is to solve a problem. If you look at the case above, one can easily sense that the problem was not a lack of software. Software developers often see when proposing solutions an inclination to changes in a process that existed in the non-digital way of doing. So, its not to say that software couldn't have solved the problem. As was the hope with the promise of a "Digial Bangladesh", that we'd be able to bypass the corruption and the grim faced people at the government office counters who nonchalantly ignore the people requesting their services.

Dhaka is a prime place for automating services. The greatest benefits would be derived from avoiding long drives from one point of the city to any other point. Even neighboring areas like Banani and Gulshan are far in terms of time if you are going between them by car. Another benefit that citizens would hope for is to avoid the circumstances where they are victim to unlawful payments for services they rightfully deserve. Sometimes they don't want payments, but they also don't want to serve you. From my own experiences and of others, I know sometimes they would just ignore you and carry on a conversation with someone at a nearby desk.

Thus, digitizing the GD process should have involved careful considerations of what was required for it to come of use to the citizens. Issues like authentication and electronic signatures should have been considered and processes redefined and the whole police camp trained to work with it. As far as avoiding traffic goes, digitizing processes in government offices combined with a use of the postal services could simultaneously reduce the amount of people traveling on the roads of Dhaka and also increase the revenues of the postal department. I am suggesting using the postal department in sending final papers, or even something like passports for renewal, etc, back and forth between government offices and the public.

As of now, a lot of the progress so far is having a lot of forms scanned and put up on the respective websites. That is a good start, but one from which we should now evolve to provide further assistance. The government now takes the liberty to sms its citizens about the evils of corruption, but so far not enough was done to root out the go-slow attitude and inefficiencies of the offices where we avail government services. If a service-oriented culture is not harnessed, the computers sent to these offices might never even be turned on.

Also not encouraging is the Digital Bangladesh website itself being so far unavailable for a month.

Related:
Road to Digital Bangldesh

Social ICT: Research/Social ICT Entrepreneurship

The research for cheap computing solutions for providing computing services for children from poor families or communities led to the development of the XO laptop from MIT. Similarly, Intel had also run their own research with the same goal. Though, recently both of them lost a bid for providing education computing services to Andhra Pradesh, India to NComputing's solution using virtualization (where each student only has peripherals like a monitor or screen, and a mouse and keyboard, and all computing is done on a central computer. This solution proved cheaper than both XO and Intel, costing $70 per student), nothing can undermine the need for research in areas such as this. Poor countries have less money to spend, and thus the cheaper the technology, the more those societies can reap it's benefits.

Another research project will take us back to the issue of accessibility. As it turned out, two separate researches done in two different continents produced similar results - one in USA and another in Italy. Both developed a system to help navigate people with blindness around an area using RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification). In the case of the research in Italy, they installed RFID transponders into pavements and they each hold an ID. These get activated by chips installed on the tip of the canes and this results in the ID being sent to a smart phone which uses the ID to search a database of locations to retrieve information about the current location and announce it to the person using the cane. This way people with blindness can know where they are, or if they are at a crossing, etc.

A story closer to home is of the work of Tapan Parikh, who helped the fishermen and MFI's (Micro Finance Institute) achieve efficiency in a village in Kerala, India. Without really doing something innovative in terms of creating technology, he thought of a way to harness the computing power of modern cell phones to bring about managerial improvements for self help groups (little groups formed by those taking the loans from MFI with a common goal to achieve).

'Sustainable development' is a term well known, practically, everywhere today. It is a very important fact that development cannot be considered without thinking about whether it is sustainable or not by the community it is being sought out for, and in that scenario, if technology is to be used for the benefit of third world countries, it has to be affordable. This phenomenon has been observed here with mobile phones whose market is now full of different brands of a wide range of prices. So, projects like Tapan's is now easily attainable and sustainable for its target group. Phones with the advent of GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution) that allow them to access the internet can do a lot to reduce a digital divide. Another aspect in computing is software, which is also getting help achieving sustainability from the open source software development community. Linux has been from a long time ago, been the favorite operating system (OS) of choice in many research circles/academia. As mentioned before the XO Laptop for children in poor areas also used Linux as its platform in helping keep the price of the product low. Considering that the XO and Tapan Parikh's work are quite recent happenings, research along these lines started long before that, at the beginning of the 21st century, a research with the intention to help the poor farmers in India by providing computational power in the form of a simple computer running on a Linux OS. That simple computer was also small, as the size of a PDA, and was aptly named Simputer. Though developments in other ares even half a decade later brought to question the success of the Simputer, it was a deserving research area - reducing the digital divide. The license to develop Simputers were given out to two computers who still continue to manufacturer devices based on the Simputer specifications (search online for the Amida Simputer).

There are also organizations out there who continue to reinforce the use of ICT for social change, for social empowerment. These organizations do their part by showing their appreciation for those who directly contribute towards bringing about social empowerment and change.

A lot of the readers probably heard of the Stockholm Syndrome, and now its time to hear about the Stockholm Challenge. This is a contest that has been taking place since 1994. Its current organizer is The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH for short), which also happens to be a mildly popular destination for students from Bangladesh to go for higher studies. The challenge is meant to promote and appreciate projects in ICT that help sectors in society which might go overlooked normally, to “counteract social and economic disadvantage”. The award is given in six categories:
1.Public Administration, 2. Education, 3. Economic Development,
4. Culture, 5. Health, 6. Environment, and 7. Global Knowledge Partnership (Included from 2008's competition).

The Stockholm Challenge is now a biannual event, and the winners of this challenge receive a trophy and cash prize, and has some big Swedish companies as sponsors – Ericsson and Sida, and the City of Stockholm. Though the competition for the current year is over, our students and researchers of ICT might want to start thinking on whether they are up to this challenge for 2009! Lets hope so.

There is also an annual conference on ICTD, with even biddings taking place to host them. Well known and respected universities like Berkley take part in those bids and host these conferences. 2009's conference is destined to take place in the Qatar campus of another well reputed university of the United States of America - Carnegie Mellon, with none other than Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates as the keynote speaker. At each of these conferences, many research papers are presented, workshops are held, and panels of researchers are poised to hold discussions on important, novel or unresolved issues on the use of ICT for development. This is also an event that the universities of a country like Bangladesh should be very aware of, and they should organize their students to think about and participate in these kind of events. We are operating in a country where there is a spectrum of economic divide, where the right kind of education is not accessible to most, and bad bureaucracy steals the life of most good intentions. ICT might have a way out from a lot of those used in the right context, or not, and that is the matter of research. The call for papers for the 2009 ICTD conference is open, and the details of this is laid out nicely on their website (Available in the references section below).

Social ICT: Education

How can ICT help education? The answer to this question probably has a million components. To be very optimistic, we could replace workbooks with desktops or laptops, books would not be needed to be carried in backpacks to school, but downloaded from the internet and students would no longer need to write small notes to each other behind the teacher's back, they could IM (Instant Messaging, the likes of MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger)! Not quite, but why not?

We mentioned the project DonorsChoose.org before, and that is one way that education can be facilitated by ICT. Education is a necessary component of any healthy well functioning society. Schools lacking things necessary in instilling that education on their students will be falling short of their goals, not doing as good a job as might be possible. So when projects like DonorsChoose step in and lend a helping hand, it fills in a void that would otherwise hamper the goal of a good education. What is interesting is that it started in a country like USA where people assume they have everything. I smile thinking about the possibilities of such a project carried out successfully in a country like ours where economic disparities are high. We need a link between the low end of that spectrum and the high end badly, and in more sectors than just education.

The Internet is the largest database in the world, and it serves as an important accompaniment to books for students everywhere. However, those who were not privileged to attend technology savvy schools in third world countries are missing out. Some schools might have one computer, or more, but then they might not have internet. They might have internet, but the teachers might not have the right idea of how to use it to benefit the students. So besides having technology, another important criteria is to have a plan or understanding of how to use the technology to better educate.

SchoolSat is a project that was launched to improve Internet speed at schools in Ireland, with the help of the European Space Agency, and the Internet to the schools there were considered a higly useful resource. They used the Internet to search for materials to support the subjects they were already teaching their students. Later they also learned to use the internet to showcase student projects complete with pictures. This way schools could also see what the others were doing and learn from it. The SchoolSat project was supported by the National Center for Technology for Education (NCTE), which was formed by the government of Ireland to advise, inform and support schools on how to use ICT in education. Thus, the technology is there, the purpose is there, and a government body is in place who actively support the use of technology in education. Definitely these are things we, as a country, can emulate.

Another initiative to promote the computer as a teaching/learning tool was the One Laptop Per Child project. This is not a project that just arranges for each child to have access to a laptop, but it was an initiative to design a different kind of laptop that would appeal to a child's imagination and curiosity and also provide software appropriate to children's learning needs. This laptop was named XO. Another goal was to keep the price of the resulting product to a $100. Without getting into whether the price is/was conducive to be really sellable to the third world countries, the rest of the computer was just marvelous. It had a colorful appearance and ran on free Linux operating system which helped keep its price low immensely. It also has multimedia support and assuming that the children in a small village were using this laptop, in relative proximity, they could share their drawings, or other things they worked on. The XO was developed mostly in the research labs of MIT driven hard by Professor Nicholas Negroponte and made all kinds of design decisions like the kind of battery life that would be necessary for surviving in a village to how to avoid the most usual point of failure of a laptop (the connection between the mother board and the screen, the XO's motherboard lies behind its screen) to ergonomics.

Social ICT: Accessibility

One issue remain either unsolved or ignored even in some of the developed countries, and its a huge issue in poorer, badly governed countries. This issue is of integrating people with disabilities into the rest of society. One dimension of this issue is 'Accessibility'. In the physical world, the solution to this rests in providing the support for people with disabilities to enter a building, e.g. with ramps that is an alternative to stairs for those who use wheelchairs; or making sure buses, trains, planes allow accessible passage for them to get on, so that the bus' floor is at level with the pavement on the side of the street, or it has a folding ramp in it for wheelchairs. Similarly, for ICT, there is a need for accessibility for people with disabilities. This is thus a social awareness issue for manufacturers of ICT equipment and software.

Disabilities arise from the loss of any or many of the senses or physical function of a person. In interacting with technology, we use our hands, eyes, ears and our mouth, and thus the experience of ICT can be disrupted with a loss of any of them. There is a condition called 'low vision' whereby the print on this paper would be impossible for a person with that condition to read. A magnification of 5 times would possibly make it readable for them, or maybe more. Whereas a newspaper on its print is not readable then without a magnifying glass, the online version of a newspaper could achieve that magnification easily. Any website for that matter can make sure they have support for people with such disabilities. With the development of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that allow the separation of the styling of a site from its html (Hypertext Markup Language) code with holds the content, this has become easier for both website developers and also companies who make web browsers (the software you use to view a website). Mozilla's Firefox is an example of a browser that allows its users to magnify the text on pages easily.

Other features are necessary to make web browsers accessible to a majority of the people with disabilities, keeping in mind the different kinds of disabilities. One such feature would be to make a website readable by a 'Screen Reader'. This would be a separate software or one that is a plugin installed on the browser, that reads out the content shown on a browser. This will be helpful for those with any kind of visual impairment. However, how the content is arranged on the website can make it difficult for a screen reader to read the website, or the user will have a hard time navigating a website. To tackle issues like this, W3C.org has stepped in. W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium who lay down the standards of markup languages like html, and they have also laid down what needs to be done to ensure accessibility in surfing the internet. All that is laid out in a website maintained by the specialized Web Accessibility Initiative, and its very important to be noted by both who develop websites or those who make web browsers.

The US government has actually also gone a step in that direction by laying out guidelines of its own for what it accepts as 'accessible' technology, all grouped under an act termed Section 508. These have been laid out as a guideline to be followed and comply to by all federal agencies, and those working with them. If people with disabilities can handle data the same way as those without any disabilities can, there is nothing to stop them to function at the same level as any other colleague, or member of society.

Design of interfaces like keyboards for computers or keypads for phones also need to be considered for accessibility. Braille keyboards, keypads will be very helpful for people with blindness. People with low vision would need large keys with the characters in large size they can view. Phones like the Samsung's Touch Messenger is a good example of innovations made to increase inclusion of people with disabilities into mainstream society. The Touch Messenger is a mobile phone whose interface uses braille number input, and can also send braille short messages (SMS) to other braille phones.

There is a strong movement within people with disabilities across all countries in taking charge of making sure their rights to all facilities enjoyed by people without disabilities are given and preserved. Over the years they have and are still striving to take charge of their own plight in society by demanding they be given the necessary facilities to operate normally in society. This is opposed to the idea that society will hand out things to them out of pity. To be able to do this successfully, accessibility to all forms of communication technology is vital to their purpose. Speaking locally, its probably easier to ensure that the people with disabilities in Bangladesh have more accessible technology, faster than providing accessibility on the streets and buildings. Even till now however, there is no Bangla screen reader. It has not been long that content has been able to be served in Bangla and so, the needs to have screen readers for Bangla are also quite untouched.

Social ICT: Internet Philanthropy

Lets start with the simple examples, since within the simplicity of these ideas lay the beauty of its achievement. Lets start with a few websites. Up first is DonorsChoose.org. At their site, they have a section where teachers from different places, schools list project proposals, for which they do not have enough resources to implement it fully. A price tag is usually attached to these projects so that visiting philanthropists can make better judgment on the commitment they can make to these projects financially. This goes with their tagline: 'Teachers Ask. You Choose. Students Learn'. And the resources listed can be simple things like books, dictionaries, to technical equipment like projectors. As part of the process, the receiving students also send back thank you letters and photos to the donor, which I am pretty sure makes for a very happy ending for everyone.

This site, in a nutshell, performs one very important task - it brings the right people together. There are many out there who have the intent of giving, but not sure how, and where, and schools are also struggling to find funds to finance all their needs. DonorsChoose.org is the place where these two parties shake hands. Similar websites are out there which also bring the right people together. Kiva.org is one such site, where micro-financing is given a lift. Micro-financing is usually associated with financial institutions like banks who give out the small loans. Here, the financier is an individual, and through Kiva's help, this donor can find another individual to loan his money out to. The individuals listed as seeking loans are from the developing countries, and in these countries, sums of money which might be considered small in developed countries, amount to a lot of money. Not to forget, its still a loan, and is at some point returned back to the lender. Kiva doesn't operate entirely independent of MFIs or Micro-Financing Institutions. The MFIs help Kiva pick out the candidates for loans. Similar to DonorsChoose.org, the visiting philanthropist can go through a list of these candidates, see which country they are from, learn their story, what they plan to do with the money, etc. The lenders can thus get a feel for the person they are borrowing out their money to. The actual handing over of the loan is handled by the MFI.

As long as we are on the subject of connecting, mention has to be made of TakingITGlobal.org. It has existed for as long as the most ancient of social networking websites, long before MySpace, or Facebook. Though not as popular (in terms of media coverage received) as the latter two, it does have an enormous number of members who are dispersed all over the globe and who interact with the aim of learning and pursuing social work. TakingITGlobal is a non-profit organization based in Canada which connects youth all over the world committed to social change. As stated on their website, their mission is to provide opportunities for learning, capacity-building, cross-cultural awareness and self-development through the use of Information and Communication Technologies, and beneath their logo are these three words - inspire, inform, and involve. With these goals in sight, the site is available in 12 different languages, has a good organization of information, and provides ample search facilities to locate kinds of social activities, organizations, discussions etc. The main navigating system is a menu with the following options (each with many sub options within):
Make Connections - with discussion boards, e-cards with social messages, user defined groups, search facilities for locating members, reading stories on social work or social issues posted by members, newsletters etc.
Take Action - contains guides to how youth can involve themselves in taking action in various fields like climate change, or HIV/AIDS related work etc. These are downloadable electronic documents and free. Other sub sections of this are projects (to create or browse through projects to which the viewer or other users can join depending on the vicinity), an open forum, petitions, commitments (where people can state a commitment, e.g. - to stop using non-biodegradable plastic bags, and others can take pledges to do the same, thus creating a kind of virtual solidarity for a cause). Each commitment gets a page of its own, where its acceptability can be tracked in terms of how many pledges it had targeted and how many pledges it received in reality, and also a blog for the commitment and more.
Browser Resources - with search capabilities to locate organizations, events, financial opportunities (scholarships, grants), professional opportunities (internships, volunteer positions, etc) and publications.
Express Yourself - with a global gallery (a potpourri of art, poetry, and other creative outlets that the members want to express themselves through), an online magazine called Panorama, and a printed publication called TIG Magazine, and the member blogs.
Understand Issues - with a list of internationally declared special days celebrating different causes, small games demonstrating different global issues, and whole sections dedicated to the following topics: Art and Media, Health and Wellness, Human Rights and Equity, etc.
Explore the World - Has data organized according to countries, and also a separate section on Aboriginal Canada.
The organization of information is multifold, in the sense that it is presented in many perspectives, tagged with appropriate categories. The categories in Understanding the Issues are also available for selection as search criteria when using the search facility under Browse Resources to locate organizations, financial opportunities, etc. Similarly, International Days is a sub category under Understand the Issues, yet, if someone is viewing an issue such as Health and Wellness from the Issues list also under Browse Resources, that page will also list the international days that are related to health and wellness. This makes sure that the readers are aware of all presented information from all angles on any topic.

TakingITGlobal sends a monthly dispatch to its members which outline the topics covered in its Panorama magazine, and other updates of the activities of its members. Its vast database of resources, plus its community approach, its creative outlets, make it, in my opinion, quite ideal for use even within schools and colleges, and maybe even universities to get them organized in social and community activities. TIG realizes the potential for use of its resources and toolkits for educating children about social issues, and thus one can find the link 'For Educators' right below its 'About Us' link. That outlines what they call TIGed ('TIG for Educators' made short), which has support for the issues presented as easy to understand lessons and also lets the teachers create virtual classrooms where students are taught to use tools to write and speak out on social issues. The tools are basically blogs, podcasting (audio/video content in digital formats that can be subscribed to) software, digital image galleries discussion boards, etc., put together to good use.

Best of the Web: Amadergaan.com

Amadergaan.com came from humble beginnings. In the early part of 21st century, it was merely a chatroom on the IRC network! It served one simple purpose - as a place where people would gather and talk about music. From there came a site with a forum in 2002 (or a bulletin board system or BBS as it is usually called), and some downloads of bangla music. These combined to make a pretty good recipe for success for Amadergaan.com which to its loved ones would later be known as 'AG'. After 6 years of existence, it still holds some of its first generation members, plus has hoards of new ones who are keeping the forums alive with its members' camaraderie, banter and most of all, love of all kinds of music. Hence it boasts the fitting tagline of "From Baul to Rock".

The founders of AG are Safwan and Faysal. Faysal first started the IRC chatroom while he was a student in Canada, and it was there he first met Safwan, and this is the start of the history of the site we see today. From chatroom, to a social site, they transformed AG finally to become an enterprise.

Let us first go over what AG offers its guests and members. Go to www.amadergaan.com to face the site's homepage, and there, you get an account of news from the world of music, which can consist of the new albums releasing or being worked on in a studio somewhere in Bangladesh or abroad, to news of concerts, interviews of artists, etc. Its does well to deliver on the world of music when there is not really any other source as well organized as AG.

There is a wave of a different kind flowing through the world of music in Dhaka and other urban cities for variations of rock and heavy metal music, which is classified as 'Underground' music due to its lack of support from the mainstream music industry. For the followers of such music, there was really only one option at a time, which was AG. AG is thus home to a lot of musicians now pretty well known to bigger circles, like members of the alternative rock band Arbovirus, or the now very famous producer Fuad Al Muqtadir. So, AG is also a place to keep up with the offbeat trends in urban Bangladesh, which now even includes 'Electronic' and 'Hip Hop'.

In the 6 years of its existence, one could say that AG went through a transition into adulthood, replacing its free music download section with an online shop for Bangladeshi music. This stems from a realization that our local artists need the support we can provide them by popularizing their works. That does not happen until their CD sales go up. AG has placed itself in partnership with almost all the big music production organizations in Bangladesh, e.g. - G Series, Ektaar, Sound Machine, Rage Records, Bengal Music etc.This partnership allows AG to bring these music to the audience outside who do not readily have the opportunity to pop into a local music store and buy the CDs. Locally, we are not able to purchase music online due to a lack of availability of credit card services necessary to do so, but stopping the free downloading at least forces us to visit our local stores to get the CDs. To help us make our minds up, AG provides previews of tracks from upcoming albums in their Media section. You can actually still find some free stuff in their Downloads section of Media, where there are the items not holding any copyrights restrictions. The Audio section loads a music player with a play list that has previews or teasers you might call them, of upcoming albums, and sometimes, even Demos of songs as they are being composed. The Video section is scarce, but still holds a collection of rather interesting clips, one of which if you visit soon enough is Babna (of Warfaze fame) playing some enchanting flamenco in a studio somewhere! There is a section for Articles also where you can find reviews of shows, albums, and articles from actual music reporters.

AG had another ambitious project, which was to create and host websites of a multitude of music artists. Though this didn't see the light of day fully, it was a noble effort and I hope someday we'll get to see these sites in their full glory.

AG's two creators live and work in Canada, and the level of information you see on AG would not have been possible without the team working on the grounds here in Bangladesh. This team also, was selected from none other than the forum of AG. If anyone needs proof that man is a social being, I'd welcome them to this forum. This has been an active place of communicating with Bangla music fans scattered all around the world, since its inception. And over the years, it has spread its premise from music, to culture in general, technology, to user contributed content like poetry, blogs, artworks and recordings. The best way to go about the forum would be to browse through the categories on the forums' main page. One would have to become a member and log in to access all the sections of the forum however.

Apart from the reviews of albums, and concerts in the Articles section of the site, the forum has its own section for reviews of this kind, but contributed by its members. There is also a section where concert organizers announce upcoming shows, and the members can respond to the selection of artists to perform, or the venue and other such detail not possible without a forum of this kind. Also, artists (or their friends) can come and announce upcoming releases. It’s not uncommon for member artists to upload demos to gather early comments or just for the purpose of sharing. As mentioned before, some famous and semi-famous bands and artists are part of this forum. Probably one of the most public figure to have become a member of this forum is Maqsoodul Huq AKA Mac, an artist and once the singer for the very famous Feedback (remember 'Melay Jaire'?). Here members found out how articulate and passionate this man is about music, and writing. Also among the public figures who are members of this forum is singer and TV presenter Alif Alauddin who takes feedback on her TV shows from the other members. So the forum is home to artists from the famous end of the spectrum to the obscure end of it, all using a common platform to voice out their opinions, experiences and dreams.

Debate is also one thing that happens frequently on the forum. So, the social interaction is not just on a level of entertainment and fun, but also intellectual; and it gets edgy at times. Issues like copyrights, and whether the artists actually benefit from the sales of CDs, to whether adopting western music styles lead to the tarnishing of one's own culture, to much more serious topics of local or world politics, or social issues. On occasion AG's members have even gathered themselves for social action. The most successful of this was organizing a concert in 2003 to raise funds for the then ailing great artist Abdur Rahman Boyati. Meetings were arranged from discourses within the forum, which later translated to physical meetings and then a massive line up of artists performed for a whole day playing 3 to 4 songs each to honor and help Abdur Rahman Boyati at the Shilpakala Academy.

Amadergaan today through its partnerships play a huge role in promoting music related events on the web. Next time at a concert, you should check the event banners or the ticket to the event to see if you spot the AG logo, with the saying Web Partner above it. Sometimes, the artist's Thank you note inside the album sleeve has a mention of Amadergaan. This goes to show the rising level of significance of this entity which was once just a chat room. AG in its 6 years has risen to great heights, and I wish it success in continuing its rise to provide its guests and members even more things to enjoy and hold dear.

Technology.Art.

Where is the line between art and entertainment? Between a masterpiece and a screensaver? A complex, algorithmic, evolutionary art and a fractal?

There has been a lot of interplay between technology and art, so as to move the relation from just using technology (for example, Photoshop-like software) to produce art, to the technology being an actual component of an art piece, to be the paint, as it were. Photography at its early days took a long time to be accepted widely as an art form, and this fact may seem strange to a lot of us at present. But how many of us would really appreciate the art that is now being made where the technology is like the paint on the canvas of the art? Also there are cultural, social and technological factors here if we look at the places where this art has flourished and are being nurtured.

Its still not so widespread and the critics and thinkers are now still struggling to give it a name. Digital Art? New Media Art? Software Art? Generative Art? There are many names, many variations. The medium's conspicuous role in the totality of an art piece is now the root of the need to term it with some indication of these new media that have come along. Maybe as the new media finds a common place in the world someday, they will blend into the general description of the word ‘art’.

Artists have produced art using technology as far back as 1960s. For example, Jean Tinguely is one sculptor who focused on making metallic, mechanical sculptures that could move, and one that was designed to destroy itself (Homage to New York, 1960). Robert Rauschenberg was another artist who filled an aluminum tank with mud and had an apparatus put in underneath it by which bubbles were made on the mud that was again synchronized with sounds being played on site (Mud Muse, 1971). And since the computer was being conceptualized, those who had imaginations and creativity that allowed so, it naturally started using computers and other emerging digital technologies in their artwork. Many of the art forms now take on the form of installations with sound, graphics, video, sensors or some combination thereof.


Techzine Wired's September issue did a feature of Steve Sacks who has opened up a gallery for this different art form in New York, named Bitform (http://www.bitforms.com), and is soon to open another in Korea. Christiane Paul, adjunct curator of New Media Arts at Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) has a book titled Digital Art that tries to explain, and document this phenomenon with the use of various examples (complete with illustrations) of the work done in this area all throughout. The book is well laden with these examples, illustrations, and descriptions and will challenge the newbie's imagination and raise questions or fascinate. Yearly events where one might see this kind of art on display are the ACM SIGGRAPH Futurama (USA), and the ARS Electronica (Austria).

There is one thing here that a lot of artists try to overcome from the traditional arts, that is its static nature. Art could be put on a wall or a pedestal, and the only interaction the viewer could engage in with the art was mental. Now with digital technology available, the artists can devise more interactive art. The user can now physically interact with the art, or participate with it to make it complete. For example, an installation was setup by Australian artist Jeffrey Shaw which gave a new view of New York city. There, a person would have to sit on a static bicycle and pedal to set in motion the images on a screen in front of the person. The pedaling and steering creates the sensation of moving through New York's cityscape, but with the buildings replaced by words that are characteristic to the city (Legible City, 1989).

There is also the generative and evolutionary software art that incorporate principles of evolution, artificial life and generally, algorithms to create art forms. Generative art has been defined as “any art practice where the artist creates a process, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other mechanism, which is then set to motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a complete work of art.” by Philip Galanter, who is also working in this field.

Artists never want to confine art to its medium. From drawing pictures on walls of caves, to stone to paper, from using pencils, to paint to charcoal, to using bits of paper and other elements around us as in collage techniques, mixed media, the scope increases. And the internet now is no different. From doing artwork involving text, manipulating the art of narratives and creating collaboration between participants; to using what has to be offered by the multimedia support of the WWW, and the event based model of websites; artists have moved fairly well into this area. Especially the artists with intentions of activism found it a very good platform for their work, a platform where information could be distributed freely.

In the end, art has remained art, forever changing, forever in flux, presenting itself in new forms and testing the boundaries of thought. I much prefer leaving the determination of something as art to those who present it. Whatever name we give this new form of art, its still 'art', just in a new space, with new elements.

Suggested Reading/Browsing:
http://www.rhizome.org
http://www.pixelache.ac
http://www.whitney.org/artport/
http://www.jeffrey-shaw.net/
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/
http://www.f2fmedia.net/

References:

Digital Art (Paul, Christiane, 2003)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.09/sacks.html
http://www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb/phase3/main_frame.html


Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcSX4_b3Wo

About the Video: Presented at the ARS Electronica 2006, this chair breaks down, and then locates its broken limbs by using sensors and robotics to build itself up again. The performance by the chair fulfills the senses of the viewers as would a movie. This is a work of Artist Max Dean, along with a computer scientist Raffaello D'andrea and a mechanical engineer Matt Donavan.

Activism in Music

There is a certain amount of cynicism attached to the “Peace Love and Understanding” motto of the Hippie generation. That movement was very involved with civil rights issues and to protesting the US government’s involvement in war in Vietnam. At that time, Joan Baez and many others became representative of a voice of protest against an establishment that was sending a portion of its youth out to a war that wasn’t theirs. Nick Lowe retorted to the cynicism with “What’s so funny about Peace Love and Understanding” (a cover of this is on A Perfect Circle’s last studio album titled Emotive).
Activism represents a consciousness – a general consciousness of our surroundings. A lot of people, when talk of politics come out, treat it like the dirty word it has become through years of abuse by its practitioners. Sure, it’s a corrupt premise, but all the more reason to take an interest in it to try and make it better. Activism can be about politics, about the environment, about moral issues and so on. It has to do with believing there is a need for action for a cause, and acting on it and bringing other people in on the journey.
As for musicians, they have the obvious medium at their fingertips, and a very successful one at that. Luckily, some are aware of that power.

In 1939, Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit”. A special arrangement was made to record the song since her existing record label did not want to take responsibility for doing so. The lyrics for the song was written by a Jewish schoolteacher by the name of Lewis Allan, and the song spoke of the lynching of African Americans, a common racial crime of the period. Speaking out against racial discriminations and for racial equality at that time was a scary prospect even for a white man. And being a black person in that role could very well mean death. Still Billie Holiday took that chance and the song became the anthem for protests against lynching.

Today a musician’s activism has many faces. In the era of multimedia, it could not be any other way. The artists today can release music like before, plus can speak to their audiences in large stadium arenas during concerts, speak on tv, channel ideas through music videos, and the last, but definitely with the widest reach, they can use the internet to spread ideas. Of course the bit about television and popular media is a bit tricky in case the cause is not one the owner, or advertisers would not endorse. The safest bet is then the Internet. As far as I have seen, many bands are using that medium to the best.

Try to remember Bono, without U2, and with some unlikely crowd some years ago. He was hanging out with the politicians! His cause was to get debt relief for some African countries, and he got somewhere with his approach. Most musicians are however not that interested in hanging out with the men. Or prefer to go through more conflicting paths. Rage Against The Machine, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and Incubus all have sections on their websites that deal with some causes. Incubus has made a separate foundation called the Make Yourself Foundation and Pearl Jam’s Activism section has a list of organizations that work with youth and arts, the environment, healthy eating and public schools, keeping commercialism out of public schools and community health. Rage Against The Machine has of course defined their purpose in this world in their name. They spent their years and all their energy in writing protest songs. And now that they have disbanded, their site still exists with a list of the causes they support. Tom Morello himself is quite involved in these. Zach de la Rocha, the songwriter for Rage, has put into words the anguish and the emotions of his consciousness on the issues of racism, fascism and greedy manipulations by powerful corporations of the west. They, as a band, had also played once to raise money for lawyers, investigators, and other legal costs for the trial of a man who was imprisoned without a trial. R.E.M. is a band that hails from a small quiet place in USA and they have awareness for the environment. Michael Stipe recorded few songs and raised money for Mercy Corps that helped the victims of hurricane Katrina. Those who helped on the album include James Iha (ex-Smashing Pumpkins) and Chris Martin (Coldplay). Chris’ band, Coldplay, also endorse a lot of causes on their websites. One of them is Make Trade Fair (Oxfam), the same words that Chris had written on his hands and was visible when the cameras filming the concerts zoomed on him to show him playing the piano. Quite a way to get something noticed! System of a Down shot a very simple video that surely represented their stance on the War on Terror. It was simply footage of them and others present at a rally protesting the war. The song was titled Boom. A Perfect Circle’s release of Emotive during the present times of war with renditions of the classic songs of protest and war (including a haunting version of John Lennon’s Imagine and the aforementioned What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding) also speak of their mindset now.

Of course there is risk involved in case the popular sentiment goes against what the artist has to say. That may be why a lot of artists may also choose to stay silent or appear apathetic. Consider the debacle involving the Dixie Chicks. They stated to a London audience that they were ashamed that George Bush was from Texas! A really risky move considering the factions who support the president and those that are categorically country music fans overlap very well. This caused their listeners to go into some activism of their own against the country band in the form of boycotts and public destruction of their discs. Post 911 was/is difficult for the people of USA and during the first war on Afghanistan, Bruce Springsteen, the man who criticized the US’ Vietnam agenda in Born in the USA, made a comment to the press saying that the people should support the president in the war. But come election time, he was out there, touring and rallying support for John Kerry who was running against Bush. That campaign also saw Eddie Veddar (Pearl Jam) in support. The election also saw the rise of an anti-Bush campaign in the form of a competition for 30 second political advertisements, titled Bush-in-30-Seconds. The judges included Jack Black (Tenacious D), Moby, Stipe (R.E.M.), Veddar and many more from other walks. As we know now, success is not guaranteed in activism.

The organizations that directly work with a cause, realize the power of a popular artist’s voice, and they have been frequently borrowing them to further press their causes, from arranging fund raising concerts, to holding concerts to raise awareness on an issue, to lectures from an artist at conferences, concerts and other events. The Spitfire Tour was organized in 1998. A celebrity helper was Zach de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine). The idea behind the tour was to go to different campuses and other venues to hold talks on issues ranging from the environment, agricultural reform to censorship and corporate powers. The speakers included politicians, writers, people from the film industry, and of course musicians. Amnesty International is also using musicians to promote their causes, and some of the bands already mentioned so far are already helping that out. The initiative is being called Music For Human Rights.

Incubus is one band that has opened their own organization. They named it Make Yourself Foundation (named after their successful album title Make Yourself) through which they raise money for different causes they support and publicize other efforts like the Music For Human Rights of Amnesty International. The money is raised mainly from their touring, their record sale, and auctions held through the website of items like concert tickets, the band’s old gear and other items. Tom Morello (Audioslave, ex-Rage Against The Machine) and Serj Tankian (System of a Down) also run an organization, which they call Axis of Justice. The website states: “Its purpose is to bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice.”

Locally we saw a movement worthy of praise from the members of the online forum (primarily about music) Amadergaan.com when it came forward to raise money for Abdur Rahman Boyati’s treatment on October 2004. On that occasion famed musician Maqsoodul Haque (ex-Feedback, Dhaka) was also in the boat and one of the strong hands. It was an extraordinary coming together of fans and musicians, with a lot of bands performing without payments. This, however, shifted the activist role, from musician to the music fans. Next to writing songs with an activist spirit, the next easiest thing artists can do is play live for a cause, and thus, help such movements to a success. We have seen lots of initiatives like this, and at this point The Concert for Bangladesh does need mentioning. Just like Ravi Shankar went to his musical friends for help in raising funds for Bangladesh, the friends of Meraz (bassist for Black) went to theirs to help raise money for his treatment after Black’s tragic accident on April 2005. Fund raising concerts are not uncommon, but they are usually ad-hoc and not organized centrally within a body of people as this.

Our artists serve greatly as voices of reason, and sometimes, also with that activist edge. Different Touch criticized, and presented the general criticism of politicians, and the people through their song satirically – “Ei mon chay, ekbar ami minister hobo, … shunsi naki minister-ra air condition pay… ”. Maqsood (ex-Feedback, Dhaka) in his solo album Prapto Boyoshkoder Jonno Nishiddho went for pretty sharp and direct criticism of the cat and mouse (or if you see any comedy inherent in it, Tom and Jerry) politics of our major players. Going further, back in time, our bauls did the same with issues of society, religion and all else.

The general tendency among local artists is that they are usually prepared to take part in concerts to support a cause, but not really act to on their own accord to be active in any arena, be it politics/society. Granted that the music industry in our locale is not as prosperous or lucrative as in the west, money is not the principal element for an activist. The heart and the voice must be in it, with the power to influence and inspire.

Best of the Web: Distorted Designers – Digital Community of Digital Artists

http://www.distortedesigners.com

Kind words are often spoken out of the urge to not hurt someone’s feelings when judging the works of others in any field. However, holding back proper, constructive criticism can lead to cultivating mediocrity. An end product has to be criticized just enough to make one feel inspired or pushed to elevate himself to a higher level or genius or perfection. I can hear you laughing, yes, its easier said than done. You can find this kind of honesty is harbored in a community of online digital artists that is called Distorted Designers.

Distorted Designers is an inspiring place for both its visitors and its members. Even people outside the realm of digital design will find themselves surrounded by intriguing mix of colors, swaying lines and imagery that pleases the senses. The membership is open to everyone, just find the Register link and fill up the form to get full access to their forum which is a treasure chest of information. It’s a community devised to increase the interaction between all the people involved in this field or preparing to do so. Non-designers can still get a very satisfying experience from all the content that is open to all.

Digital design is not a well established field here in Bangladesh yet. There is a lot of demand for it due to the appearance of multiple satellite tv channels, software companies, the increase in the use of the internet, and special needs for industries like real estate and architect firms for animated visualization of their projects, etc. Make no mistake; this demand is being met very well, but mostly by self-taught, maverick designers, most of them with almost no institutional training. In this scenario, a community site for designers provides a much needed platform for exchange of ideas, and know-how.

At the heart of the community is its forum where the designers share their work, knowledge and also their processes. That shows through in the face of the site, its homepage, as the forum is mentioned in some detail. The layout of content in the homepage is also done with taste, showcasing some of the samples of its members’ works in a large banner. Also noticeable are its efforts to display some advertisements from companies looking to hire designers. Looking around the center of the page is the Designers and Top Rated section of the page, where the more involved members are highlighted. To appear listed as a designer on the homepage, one must show 5 completed works inside the forum. This simple condition ensure that exposure is given to the more experienced and more active designers. And the administrators of the site go through the works in the forum to select and present some of the convincingly well done pieces of work in the Top Rated section.



A non-member faces some restrictions in the forum, with not all sections being open to them, but outside that, the content viewable without membership is highly commendable. The Done section is possibly one that you wouldn’t want to miss, since it’s the section where the members actively submit their finished works. Works range from caricatures, to cover design of music CDs of recording artists, from eid cards to 3D graphics, and even logos. A lot of the members are working graphics professionals and have a lot to offer in terms of quality of work and obviously industry knowledge, a lot of them are working also for self-satisfaction but equally knowledgeable. There is also a good amount of conceptual artworks here also, the kind of projects that a designer might not be able to necessarily do on a job at the office. So expect to see some things out of the ordinary, some things going out towards the imaginative genres of traditional art like abstract or surrealism, and some things that might be designs of products from the future. All this has been put under the title ‘concept art’ usually in the world of design, and you can get a taste it right here.

Probably even more interesting, at least to me personally, is the section – Sketches & Works in Progress. Here you can take a look at works in different stages of completion. Its members are abound with comments, both praises and suggestions for their fellow members, be it a completed piece of work or something in its earlier stages. The Critique Center section of the forum exists especially for those who are really eager to get opinions of the other members of the forum for a particular project. As it says on the description of the section: “Be Honest, be helpful, be straight-up, be true, and share your ideas about how to make better art/design”.

I mentioned many times the sharing of knowledge as a major advantage of this community. Its not achieved, however, through just one section. Its spread all over the Done section, Critique Center, Sketches & Works in Progress and many others. So, to browse or search through the site would be an enlightening experience.

Under the heading Tricks, Tweaks and Tutorials, there are a lot of help to be found for those looking for it. The members had proactively contributed a lot of articles on different techniques, and as it says on the title of that part – tricks and tweaks. This is also the part where the members can post their questions, and the other members dive in to provide assistance. This part has three sections – Design which deal with the design issues people have, especially on the usage of software like Illustrator and Photoshop which are the most popular worldwide in this arena; Animation – which is now a popular way of decorating websites, for promotional videos of products, and even training games and demos; and Web Development – for the website designers who work with code like HTML, PHP etc.

I hope you had visited this site, and had a great time looking through all the activities that go on there, and enjoyed the artwork from the Distorted Designers.

Quotes:

When the true colors cover the true Sky…that’s named Rainbow; which come from true haven. Like this way…A true design comes out from a true heart; which based on true feelings…isn’t it true? We the DD pupil appreciate the sentiment of true heart; which is the base of our creative work…so a smart designer can make a smart design...

Iqram Ahmed
CEO
CreativeGeek


A great place to communicate with other designers

K. Zahidur Rahman
Senior Graphic Designer
KAZ Software

It’s really an exceptional designer community for all Bangladeshi creative designers. It’s nice, well organized, new concept in web community. I wish all the very best to the DD and congratulate for its great initiative.

S.M. Shabbir Hossain
Senior Creative Engineer
KAZ Software


First of it's kind here in BD...and finally too! What a great way to showcase your talent, hard work and learn from people working in the same field and best of all bringing all the creative think-tank under one roof !!! :)

Dhanad Islam
Web Designer
Therap Services, LLC.