March 24, 2008
Anti-Ajax FUD
Anti-Ajax FUD: There's a very strange article at ComputerWorld today, which describes a pay-to-read report from Forrester Research. The strangeness starts at the intro [paraphrased]: "Ajax can be slow, so Forrester recommends AIR or Silverlight". The Adobe Integrated Runtime is not an in-browser technology, and the shipping version of Microsoft's Silverlight browser plugin relies on the browser's JavaScript for any interactivity... the recommendation makes zero sense. An anecdote says the initial rendering time was slower for an Ajax rewrite of a Visual Basic app, but Visual Basic lives on the local machine, while Ajax is transferred from a centralized machine... hard to compare the two. You can have both local and remote validation of user inputs... different needs. The Tamarin efficiencies in logic-processing are already available on 95% of consumer machines, within the Adobe Flash Player... works reliably the same regardless of browser brand, browser version, or common operating system details. The article makes me want to read the original Forrester report, to learn directly what the authors might have tried to say. Silverlight shouldn't be mentioned in this article at all (at least until Microsoft ships a full 1.0!), and Flex development (with SWF delivery) would be a more appropriate parallel to Ajax than AIR. The article disparages JavaScript-based apps, but for unsound reasons.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 01:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 20, 2008
The Web, pre-Web
The Web, pre-Web: Andy Baio did a great thing here: "Lately, I've started collecting old VHS tapes about the Internet from the early- to mid-1990s. While most of these are pretty corny -- think Gabe and Max's Internet Thing -- they also inadvertently captured pieces of the web that don't exist anywhere else. The Internet Archive's earliest snapshots were in late 1996, so anything before that is extremely sparse. The videos, silly as they are, still represent valuable documentation of the early web. I spent most of the day yesterday working on a workflow to digitize VHS tapes, settling on VCR to MiniDV camera my Macbook Pro with Firewire. These tapes are pretty worn, so the quality's not great, but that almost adds to their charm...." Lots of the early Web has disappeared, so we all owe Andy a debt of thanks for capturing what was found of it on videotapes.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 19, 2008
Adobe Developer Week
Adobe Developer Week: This has gotten some attention in weblogs, but may have gotten buried in the rush of non-news... starting next Monday there will be twenty online classes, which will be recorded and available for subsequent viewing. I don't know group size, standby lists, or differences between live participation and recorded viewing.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 22, 2008
MS, developers, experiences
MS, developers, experiences: Sometimes the pioneers explore a new frontier, and then others really develop its popularity. Sometimes. Macromedia may have pioneered the ideas of cross-platform distribution of richer, more interactive experiences, but Microsoft has always had a strong presence within corporate intranets and other closed environments -- that's a lot of developer power! It's a good thing overall that your local IT desk has the capability to use color, motion and sound... beats having them making text interfaces with funny buttons, or having them demand you change your browser to do your business. It's a good and necessary thing to bring the trailing edge along. I've been reading a lot more of these threads, and thinking about how things sometimes turn out, after reading some of these articles on the web today.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 02:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 21, 2008
SF meet tonight
SF meet tonight: I haven't seen this in the aggregators yet today... if you're in San Francisco then there's a meeting: "The San Flashcisco user group aims to promote understandings of Flash Platform technologies within and around the San Francisco area with emphasis on learning, fun and networking." (nb: I do call it "Frisco" on occasion, but I'm still a little uneasy with "Flashcisco".... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 19, 2008
Binary vs text
Binary vs text: Joel Spolsky looks at the recent documentation for Microsoft Office native file formats, and asks "Why are the Microsoft Office file formats so complicated?" Fortunately he answers the question -- these binary file formats grew up with use of the tools, and had to solve an ongoing series of problems, and weren't designed for direct manipulation by others. Plausible, useful perspective here. Towards the end he outlines ways to solve problems by using the current functionality of the tools themselves, rather than writing new code to digest the old formats. This doesn't explain why the more recent XML formats for Microsoft Office are so remarkably complex, however... an XML format seems like it should be able to be implemented by others, particularly if it is proposed as a common standard. Efficient binary formats have different priorities than open text formats... different types of beasts.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2008
QuickTime 7.4
QuickTime 7.4: In case you hadn't seen the news, you might want to hold off on updating QuickTime for a bit, in two specific situations: exporting QuickTime from Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects; or inspecting system calls with the UNIX-based DTrace on your Mac. The QT7.4 update adds Apple iStore functionality, as announced at Macworld Expo, so adoption rates are likely pretty significant. The issue arose in the Adobe Discussion Forums last week, and staffer Michael Coleman had an advisory up Monday morning. But no chance to try to address it in After Effects 8.02 update, published Tuesday. (I don't know much about DTrace; discussion here.) This is a showstopper issue for videographers, and even though Apple rarely gives guidance, I suspect it's on a fast-track for a fix. Anyway, if you know friends who do video work, or who rely on DTrace, then making sure they know of QT7.4 could help them, thanks.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 07, 2007
Some bumps
Some bumps: Tinic Uro helped me understand the Hydra initiative... Narciso Jaramillo made Thermo a lot clearer for me. (I'm also happy about the ambient computing being done by Fernando Florez, and agree with Dan Florio on the serendipity of conference connections.)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 05, 2007
Hello, I Must Be Going
Hello, I Must Be Going: There won't be much happening on this weblog the next few weeks, because I'll be spending time in China instead of San Francisco. Adobe is one of the few companies to have a sabbatical policy, and I'm grandfather'd in on a lengthier Macromedia-style sabbatical. I'll be three weeks in Beijing, two in Shanghai, mostly to see how people are coping with the sudden changes and the new technologies. In my own life exposure to technical change has been gradual and incremental, but in these two cities the meeting has been abrupt, the results vibrant. I want to learn how other people see the new digital realities -- they'll predict how we'll all deal with the ever-accelerating change. I'll have computer and camera, but am unsure of connectivity and workflow... more likely to be on Twitter and my personal blog. Zai jian, ya'll! [I'm updating the publishing date on this item to keep it on the top of the stack... originally appeared on Oct 5.]
Posted by JohnDowdell at 06:52 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 25, 2007
Uninstalling iHacks
Uninstalling iHacks: Erica Sadun of The Unofficial Apple Weblog has the best summary I've seen yet of what we know about reversing the various iPhone unlock hacks circulated last month. Good to read, but no rush to action: "If you haven't tried relocking yet, do yourself a favor and just wait until we figure out why some relocks are going wrong." Apple's situation seems to be that they're not in a position to test and reverse the various hacks themselves... the Apple updaters are designed and tested upon an Apple configuration, not a hybrid. Who bears the responsibility for an uninstaller...?
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2007
"Apple Screwed Me!!"
"Apple Screwed Me!!" No info here, I'm just ranting at the ranters, and Twitter's down. Techmeme's top circle-link today is about people angry that they bought an iPhone after the first rush, but before the first pricedrop. It's just $200, and just your ego to have the newest/fastest... the two should be able to be reconciled somehow. I can't raise much sympathy for someone complaining about not getting the best deal on a minor luxury item -- realistically, you're far more harmed by centralization of the money supply and deflation of its value; there's lots more important stuff to be concerned about. I'm glad Russell Beattie is writing again, but I disagree with this: "Happily screwing the early adopters and rewarding the laggards is something only Apple can do with a smile, no?" Apple didn't screw you; you made your own decision, based on the best info of the time -- the $200 may be less important than your self-image as a shopper. God forbid you should get into a Three Card Monte game or something.... ;-)
Update: Apple responds, with an offer to split-the-difference. I'm amazed; that's like a 30-hour turnaround to recognize, strategize, and implement a response!
Posted by JohnDowdell at 08:22 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 04, 2007
iCar designs
iCar designs: Tom Spring of PCWorld has a nice collection of links here: "With reports Apple and Volkswagen are in cahoots to build an iCar who can resist pondering what an iCar might look like. Lucky for me there is no shortage of imaginative Apple designers -- with apparently time to burn -- dreaming what an iCar might look like. This is what I found...." Nothing profound, but some nice eye-candy here.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 01:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2007
Gear on the go
Gear on the go: Awesome collection of photos and text at Lifehacker, showing how various people pack for computing on the go. Most of these are daybag contents, but there are two travel vest descriptions as well. I don't see any mentions of utility belts yet, but Lifehacker is accepting submissions for another week. How do you go, when you're on the go...?
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2007
Game manuals
Game manuals: Seems to be a very useful resource, if you need to check how someone else actually handled a problem years ago: "If you were saying to yourself 'Now, where can I browse over 1,700 arcade manuals in PDF format?', your prayers were just answered. This is over three gigabytes of manuals, schematics, and general information about arcade machines, scanned in by an anonymous army of dedicated people, and going back up to 30 years...." [via Jason Scott, via Andy Baio]
Posted by JohnDowdell at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Text in motion
Text in motion: CSS leader Dave Shea links to a baker's half-dozen YouTube videos which specialize in English text moving in correspondence to narration. I was struck by how effective the text animation was, even though it was a video which passed through the YouTube publishing process (which can often introduce recompression issues or re-keying of framerates). There is smooth and graceful animation here, even though it may not be running at a hundred frames a second. The key is the use of classic animation principles... timing, anticipation, followthrough, arcs, easing, squash/stretch... there's a way to make things come alive, but it requires more smarts and skills than just cranking the framerate up beyond what any browser/processor can actually deliver. Disney classic animation displayed in movie theatres at 24 frames per second, and many of those pieces were done two-up, with a single piece of artwork shown for two frames, for an effective framerate of 12fps! Check out the Johnston & Thomas animation link above... it discusses the principles used behind many of the typography pieces to which Dave linked.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 03:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
3D Mouse
3D Mouse: Mac-only. 3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, adds 3D manipulation for models rendered by Adobe Acrobat 8, in addition to its prior 3D manipulation in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 11:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 10, 2007
Lots of links
Lots of links: Looking for some weekend reading? Here's a bunch of pages open in my browser the past few days, some techy, some not....
Chicago Tribune goes all punny with a story about traffic violations with the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.
Microsoft offers miraculous image-editing.
Aral Balkan tested the Nokia N800 Tablet with Adobe Flash Player 9, and many things worked on the new form-factor, but not all.
Unlike Anil Dash, I'm still a little peeved that Daniel Lyons berated anonymity while exploiting it himself.
Night & Day couldn't have been a standard, it had a 48-bar structure....
Beer bubbles at SIGGRAPH....
Draw Anywhere is SWF which offers flowchart drawing in the browser.
Kyle Hayes ran comparisons of Google Websearch queries for ColdFusion and ActionScript... I was most impressed by the regional distinctions which showed up for these and other terms.
A corporate blogging article turns into a CEO-blogging article, but has some valid observations on how open communications can help in a variety of ways.
Spoilers for life, and I thought it was funny too.
Steve Webster has info on a conference presentation on Flash, Yahoo, standards.
Newspapers use movie footage to illustrate breaking news.
Forrester Research: "Ninety-seven percent of the 1,000-plus corporate Web sites that Forrester Research has evaluated received failing grades... Manning says that there's no perfect Web site on the Internet. Forced to choose one, he picks Adobe.com, which he says is easy to read and full of useful information."
Eve Lee had a post-mortem on the Acrobat/Kinko issue, which doesn't focus on mom&pop printers like the mainstream press did, but which does address the under-reported intranet aspects. "'A direct print link from any application that bypasses organizational controls raises security, policy, and legal issues on a much higher level,' says Ray Chambers, CEO of Chambers Management Group and a longtime director of in-plant (nonprofit) document management. 'There could be Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act implications... not to mention Safe Harbor in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' He adds, 'Many of us have contractual agreements with other print providers, be they local franchises of national quick print providers or local commercial businesses. The FedEx Kinko's link, by facilitating print to an alternative site, may put the organization at risk of contract violations and cause a breach of trust between the organization and a trusted supplier.'"
Drew McLellan has been strategizing how to scale PHP work.
John Gruber notes UI changes in new Apple keyboards.
Apple has an extremely centralized glory structure.
Kuler now accepts color themes in URLs... Scott Fegette has more.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 03:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 26, 2007
PCs running cars?
PCs running cars? Apparently the number of computers running Windows will continue to exceed the number of autombiles running Windows, at least for the forseeable future... Mary Jo Foley transcribes a Steve Ballmer quote: "'There will be more PCs running Windows than automobiles at that point [June 2008], Ballmer told attendees.'" Or maybe he meant using Windows will continue to be more popular than having your car run your computer. But that doesn't make much sense. Or maybe... oh, I get it, he says there will be more PCs than cars by next year... that's plausible, considering that quick web searches show 66 million automobiles produced in 2005, and 240 million computers produced in 2007. More of them will run Player and Reader than Windows however, even though they all have windows... oh stop it John, stop teasing the poor man. ;-) Mary Jo also adds: "I thought it interesting that Ballmer emphasized repeatedly that Microsoft now sees itself as an advertising company. When identifying the four primary areas where Microsoft sees itself competing, advertising was one of those. (The other three: Commercial software, open source, consumer electronics.)"
Posted by JohnDowdell at 12:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Flash Player, Yahoo Toolbar
Flash Player, Yahoo Toolbar: It's not fair to spring this on me before I have my morning coffee. Google News showed the following story in a newspaper: "How can I install Adobe Flash Player without also getting that nasty Yahoo toolbar?" The answer describes how to visit the Adobe site and uncheck the toolbar offer before installing. The wacky thing is that Adobe doesn't offer the Yahoo Toolbar to people in Microsoft Internet Explorer who actually visit the Adobe site to install instead of using the normal background ActiveX process -- that offer switched to Google Toolbar awhile ago, as Emmy Huang and the FAQ show. It's still true that unchecking offers doesn't offer them, and still true that it's only IE/Win which sees this offer, and only if you're one of the minority who visit the Adobe site to install. (Making such offers of separate downloads on the Adobe site has paid for much of the engineering work on the Player -- it's advantageous to all.) Newspapers can be tricky; it felt like I had wandered down a time tunnel during the night, let me finish off this cup of coffee before instructing me on the evil of Scooter Libby or whatever's next, okay...? ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 18, 2007
New tech confusions
New tech confusions: Not all speakers are up to speed; here's a refresher. Adobe Flash Player 9 is already plugged into nearly all the world's browsers. Microsoft's Silverlight is a proposed future browser plugin. The beta Adobe Integrated Runtime gives webpages extra privileges -- to become more like OS-native applications -- across different brands of operating systems. Adobe Flex consists of MXML, the framework and compilers, and optional tooling and data servers from Adobe -- its compiled SWF output runs locally within Adobe Flash Player 9. In 2002 Rich Internet Applications introduced in-browser applications which separated data requests from display requests, and RIAs became very popular after Ajax enfranchised JavaScript developers. Sun's JavaFX is an announcement about a new scripting language which can compile for playback in each browser's Java Virtual Machine. Flex adoption is through the roof, but is still only at the start of its growth curve. Silverlight can not possibly be "a reasonable choice for anyone planning on building cross-platform RIAs today", even if you were willing to accept the extra user costs of installation, because there's not even a definitive installation yet. Comparing Silverlight to "Flex" makes no sense; the author could more usefully compare XAML with MXML. The best thing about Microsoft's adoption last year of the "Experience Matters" mantra is that they're greatly helping to raise the expectations about acceptable user experiences today. Related: Mike Downey distinguishes similar parts of proposed technology stacks from potential future competitors. (Mike says they're already competitors, but I think only in marketing campaigns, not in actual deployed technology.)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 12:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 08, 2007
Offline a bit
Offline a bit: Blogging should be light for me this week... going to take a few days, enjoy the summer. See ya!
Posted by JohnDowdell at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 07, 2007
BarCamp: Feel of the Floor
BarCamp: Feel of the Floor: If you'd like to get a feel for what it's like on Townsend St today, then Enric Cirne has a nice, lengthy video, just walking around the facility, observing what people are doing. 45 megs, good quality compression, a real sense of the ambience.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 08:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
BSD thread
BSD thread: Over the last week someone who wants Adobe Flash Player for BSD Unix has been posting in various weblog items here. I've moved them all into this thread, in hopes of (a) helping him make a better case; and (b) removing off-topic material from other weblog items. Feel free to add to it. Current laptop ports are listed here.
-----
Posted to Corporate honesty:
adobe corporate culture is hardly a model for
openness and communication is it ?
[jd sez: I don't know who is a model for whom, but I do know that we disclose our affiliations.]
they use code from the (genuinely) free OS's but then
barely acknowledge their existence, and lock
them out of the www.
refusing to supply the free BSD's with
flashplayer has made a complete
mockery of open web standards.
what good are standards compliant web browsers
when there's barely a page that will render
as intended by the designer, and many
*many* sites that can't be used at all ?
why does nobody at adobe even acknowledge this ?
not a comment on the thousands of sigs on
the petitions, or the flashplayer request forms,
no comment to posts on adobe blogs or
the requests made in the forums.
this sorry state of affairs is even
mentioned in the flashplayer wikipedia page.
like the thousands of others,
I am a little tired of being ignored,
this has been going on for years.
why won't you comment JD ?
hello ?
[jd sez: You're posting anonymously. *You* won't disclose. (I think the core of your plaint is "I want Adobe's source code because I choose an ultra-minority platform.")]
Posted by: paul at July 7, 2007 03:52 AM
I'm not posting anonymously JD, my name *is*
paul.
you also have my email address, what more info
would you like ?
and no, I do not want the source code, that's
yours. what I want is for someone to respond
to the thousands of requests with *something*.
I want to be treated the same as everybody else.
as to ultra-minority, check netcrafts figures.
you'll be surprised.
and yet again you haven't answered ANY of the
points I've raised JD.
what's the matter,
cat got your tongue ?
-PAUL (yes, PAUL, honestly)
Posted by: paul at July 7, 2007 07:31 AM
Paul of Saul? Paul of Abbey Road? Paul Allen, protecting his portfolio? Probably some other kind of "Paul", I suppose....
If you won't bet on your own words, why should others invest their time in reading them?
I'm in a bit of a dilemma here, because I try to keep this weblog respectful of the reader's time, and you've been spinning your wheels on "no respect for BSDs" on a few threads here. I should just remove such words which add little, considering you can publish your own blog yourself. I'm always loathe to do, on the offchance that the other party might sometime start actually communicating.
Posted by: John Dowdell at July 7, 2007 07:54 AM
my name is paul jd.
I've continued to post this stuff because I get
nothing but deaf ears.
you can call me anything you like, but
I would prefer just paul.
you still haven't responded, and you are of
course free to censor me, just as I am free
to state the facts anywhere that will allow
me to do so.
the fact that you think the BSDs are ultra-minority
speaks volumes. before hotmail was bought
out by MS, it was freebsd, yahoo is freebsd,
many many millions of webservers run freebsd.
gregs book sold more copies than some of the
platforms you support.
it's a minority only in the sense that it's
not in the top 3 platforms on the 'net.
(unless you include the juniper kit etc)
and has been crippled on the desktop by the
lack of flashplayer.
check netcrafts figures, I can't fnd recent
stats there but here's one from waay
back in 2004
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/06/07/nearly_25_million_active_sites_running_freebsd.html
how large an installed base would be
necessary for adobe to come to a decision ?
I don't enjoy trying to ambush you on your blog,
but it's a little annoying to be ignored for
sooo long.
-paul.
Posted by: paul at July 7, 2007 08:11 AM
How is the number of servers running BSD relevant to a discussion on the lack of client-side technology for the platform?
According to http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp, Linux hovers around 3.5%. I won't pretend to know jack about *nix, but if Linux as a whole is 3.5% (which Adobe provides a player for the majority of, right?), what is BSD on the whole? 1%? I would certainly consider that an ultra-minority.
Posted by: Ben at July 7, 2007 09:31 AM
personally, I think I'd consider 3.5% as an
ultra-minority, it's an ultra-vocal minority
though.
the BSDs don't get used much on the desktop,
I'm a staunch supporter of course, but it's
painful to web browse without flash, it really
is that much of a big deal.
I'm sat here running
win32 right now purely because of that.
you may think I'm exagerating, but I know for
certain that a lot of freebsd/openbsd/netbsd/etc
users dual-boot or have another system running
just for that purpose.
it's good to have the desktop running the
same OS you're developing for, or admin'ing.
everything else is in place, mplayer, vlc, java,
openoffice, all that jazz, all run the same
as they do on other platforms, it's pretty much
flash that's the killer now, the only bit
of client side technology lacking.
of course silverlight may add to the misery.
if the BSD's are 1%,
(that's probably a generous guesstimate)
then maybe they'd approach 2% with flashplayer.
surely, approaching 100% market
penetration is something worth expending the effort over ?
PC-BSD is looking quite attractive as a desktop,
and 1-2% is a hell of a lot of users, no ?
I can't see how it would be a huge effort to port
to say freebsd, as pretty much all the opensource
multimedia apps build and run without
any drama, mplayer and vlc are monsters.
same compiler, same complete toolchain pretty much.
also, as mac OSX userland is pretty much
FreeBSD, it's an environment that may seem
oddly familiar to a porting team.
as you mentioned linux "as a whole" it's probably
worth saying that there's no such fracturing
and forking of the userbase, e.g. there's one freebsd,
-stable and a -current (dev) branch.
this uniformity is a big deal, it cuts down
support dramatically.
so, when you look at desktop browser
fiigures, I guess ultra-minority is pretty fair.
however, given a little nurturing that would
surely increase.
anyway, guess I'm really asking, why not ?
it's worth much kudos , good PR, and brownie-points
to adobe if nothing else.
-paul
Posted by: paul at July 7, 2007 10:34 AM
-----
Posted to Chocolate confirmation:
why's there no flashplayer for the free BSD's ?
some of their code is in it, do the right thing,
not the absolute minimum the licence dictates!
Posted by: paul at July 5, 2007 11:43 AM
-----
Posted to Nokia N800 tablet, Adobe Flash Player:
why's there no flashplayer for the free BSD's ?
some of their code is in it, do the right thing,
not the absolute minimum the licence dictates!
Posted by: paulh at July 6, 2007 10:11 AM
-----
Posted to Happy Bday, Player 9:
one year since 9 release and still no hint of a
port to the OS's you're effectively locking out
of the www.
(despite the petitions and begging messages)
[jd sez: Hi, I'm not sure why you feel the need to speak anonymously. If you're asking "Is there any guidance for porting to 64-bit architectures?" then here is a good starting point.]
according to your eulas there's openbsd and lots
of other genuinely free (non-viral)
code in flashplayer 9, so why haven't you
"done the right thing" and ported the thing to
the platforms that gift you this code ?
freebsd, dragonflybsd, netbsd, openbsd etc.
it really should be pretty trivial given
past experience, if you need help I'm sure
it would be forthcoming immediately.
[jd sez: Standardizing high-level rich-media support across operating systems which currently lack even low-level standardized support is usually non-trivial.]
nobody is asking for support, just a binary,
this worked well for netscape and was much appreciated.
really does seem that all this talk of supporting
opensource by adobe is just that, talk.
only the commercial and market-viable
platforms are catered for, nobody else matters,
right ?
if anybody does condescend to reply to this,
don't bother telling me "we have no plans now
but that may change" or "the linux binary runs".
the former seems to be flannel and the latter is
untrue.
a year's long enough to let your intentions be known, you've pissed everybody right off.
(even leaving acroread and flash 7 out of the equation)
if this sounds bitter then you're just getting
a hint of the vitriol taste you've left in
my mouth because of this.
at least you know where you stand with microsoft.
-
Posted by: bitter&twisted at July 2, 2007 08:47 AM
didn't realise I hadn't filled in a name,
however although I am by no means a spokesman for
any of these projects, you can take it as read
that I was summing up the feelings I have and
those I've heard expressed by others.
if you doubt this then you could always ask on
irc, examine the petitions, actually ask people.
I didn't mention 64bit port at all,
the 32bit x86 machines running these OS have
no player either.
SDL, OSS, the various X dri and fb
schemes all seem to work nicely cross platform.
(even svgalib where applicable oddly enough)
vlc, mplayer, firefox, *etc*, hugely complex apps
with a lot of dependencies don't appear to have
huge problems supporting multiple *nix platforms,
so what's the specific problem flashplayer has ?
I'd be surprised if it's anything that can't be
overcome, these other apps manage it without much
in the way of drama.
your response was made to sound like there's
a lot of work involved. I have no idea what your
build infrastructure is like, and it may well be
the case that it's a lot of effort to kickstart
something like this.
however..
as to any difficulties porting the code,
you'll never know until you actually try.
Posted by: paul at July 2, 2007 12:35 PM
no response.
fine.
just remember that every time you slap
yourself on the back over this, you're also
slapping some of us in the face.
Posted by: paul at July 3, 2007 07:24 PM
-----
Posted by JohnDowdell at 12:46 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
June 22, 2007
iPhone features
iPhone features: Looks like The Onion has a startling exclusive yet again.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 03:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 07, 2007
Silverlight vs Flash
Silverlight vs Flash: Dueling arguments at ZDNet. The pro-SL position: Fewer know ActionScript than .NET and the potential DLR languages; Silverlight has Microsoft behind it. The pro-Flash position: SL is currently non-Linux; no tooling available if you're not on an MS-branded OS; currently has 0% viewability. I'm not sure either argument is strong. The pro-SL author seems to not realize that ECMAScript is used daily by millions, and that the difference in object models between JavaScript and ActionScript is likely less than the object-model learning gap required for Ruby/SL... there's also a greater range of tooling available for Flash. The pro-Flash author has true points, but those may not be as significant as consumer inertia, client inertia, and the continual pressure from other MS business units to support the organization's overall goals. Microsoft has hired many of the top Flash developers to create showcase pieces in their environment... Microsoft and Real have moved their video clients into a more Flash-like space... Microsoft has announced that their main hope for returning growth to the company is advertising, and personalization databases. We'll see how these trends play out. I think Flash is now in an even stronger position than before, myself.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:08 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 06, 2007
Specific solutions vs general solutions
Specific solutions vs general solutions: Yesterday Steve Cutter covered a debate about JavaScript libraries in ColdFusion being larger than needed for a specific use... today Dare Obasanjo suggests that Google Gears may be useless because there isn't an out-of-the-box data synchronization feature. I think both discussions may miss that it's cheaper to build a solution for a specific problem, than it is to build a general solution which can be applied to an entire class of similar problems. It's easier to hack a particular solution than it is to architect a general solution. And once a general solution architecture is available, there's always the question of it being better to use the general solution (with benefits in development time, testing, and maintainence), or bang out a one-time solution for the particular problem at hand (with benefits in codesize and customization). I think it's okay that the current Google Gears doesn't try for a universal solution to data synch -- as their architecture docs show, there's great variance in current applications even without the problem of synchronization, and today even a particular synch solution would be tricky, much less an early attempt at a general solution. Summary: It's easy to build a fishing pole from a stick, a string and a pin, but that doesn't mean that modern fishing-pole factories are bloated or useless... agree, disagree, other...?
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 02, 2007
Webware 100
Webware 100: I don't usually feel comfortable pointing to online polls, because of the way ballot-stuffing often works online, but in this case CNET's bodytext says "Are you a finalist in the Webware 100? Download a 'vote for me' button to put on your site!", so I guess they're encouraging fan votes. And anyway, I learned of it through a Microsoft staff posting.... ;-) I'm not sure if "Adobe Flash" here means the Player, the visual authoring tool, or the entirely platform -- it's lumped in with Drupal, WordPress, and Silverlight -- but I voted for "Adobe Flash" anyway, and for a few other favorite tools on other pages. Your call.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 31, 2007
At least capitalize the F?
At least capitalize the F? I don't understand non-interactive weblogs, which lock out comments even when not highly-trafficked... here, a Microsoft staffer takes the time to tell the world: "I always felt that multimedia apps (like flash) were too lightweight, too scripty and not robust enough for serious data centric development. Well, with Silverlight that's all changing." It's like he's walking around with toilet paper stuck to his shoe or something, how can other people politely help...?
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:28 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
May 21, 2007
Sequential art
Sequential art: Two links here... the first one goes to "The Mystery of Picasso", a 1956 film that I hadn't seen until last night... Picasso paints on a back-filmed canvas, so all you see is the painting gradually appear. At first this was great, because I could see how he blocked out the painting in his mind, could see it step by step instead of a final finished flat thing. But in some of these paintings Picasso started seeing the filming as performance, changing the art as he went along, making a little story out of it. MetaFilter had more discussion and some video clips of it. The other link is to news that Frank Miller will be writing and directing "The Spirit". Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art was one of the first to seriously examine the craft of drawing in time, and Miller's Daredevil and Dark Knight work innovated in sheer emotional impact. Unfolding flat paintings into time-based experiences, and a connection between two of the innovators in sequential storytelling... now all we need is Picasso holed up in a hidden crypt in Wildwood Cemetery and the cycle would be complete....
Posted by JohnDowdell at 05:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Cutty Sark, London to Shanghai
Cutty Sark, London to Shanghai: Off-topic, but shows how far we've come... historic sailing vessel Cutty Sark caught on fire yesterday... this part in the BBC's report struck me: "The Cutty Sark left London on her maiden voyage on 16 February 1870, sailing around The Cape of Good Hope to Shanghai in three-and-a-half months. She made eight journeys to China as part of the tea trade until steam ships replaced sail on the high seas." And the Cutty Sark had no WiFi either, so you could imagine how much email you'd have to catch up on after the 100-day voyage, were you one of the wealthy few who could afford to travel back then....
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 17, 2007
Virtual Bubble Wrap
Virtual Bubble Wrap: I was browsing the Microsoft blogs and saw that Silverlight has reached the bubblepop stage... you know, that little game where you pop all the bubbles, sort of like virtual bubblewrap. It's a rite-of-passage for browser plugins, I guess. The MS staff credit a Windows Mobile version for Dr. Pepper, but all the different Flash versions owe a tip of the hat to Joey deVilla, who ported the early Mackerel Media HyperCard stack to the Netscape 2.0 browser in 1995. Why's it so popular to pop fake bubbles? I don't know, I always preferred real bubblewrap myself, but this won Shocked Site of the Day and other awards... the Internet Archive has the original Mackerel page, although it looks like that Director 4.0 stuff doesn't fully play back in the browser anymore. (Notice the "loading" screen... took just one textfield, jiggered around to let you know it didn't freeze... we tried to keep plugin content below 40K in those days.) Anyway, the Virtual Bubblewrap demo has a long and honorable history... check out the above links for some of the context on this story.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 01:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 23, 2007
Google "Earth Day"
Google "Earth Day": I saw a new logo at Google yesterday, but didn't realize until today that it was meant to depict an iceberg, presumably as part of the "global warming" political/business campaign. I'm offended that Google's business would be used to impress fragile minds into supporting unsane restrictions upon others. (Background: The Earth has a long history of climate change, and while anthropogenic causes may contribute, any such effects are not yet calculable, much less intelligently remediable, rendering campaigns such as Kyoto Protocol ludicrous, particularly when these campaigns are engineered by the energy-phagic class themselves. I'm a proponent of Fullerian ephemeralization, and so would encourage improvements in technology such as air-conditioning before endorsing discriminatory and ineffective legislation.) No big thing, and other Adobe staffers would likely disagree, but I'm just personally offended by Google's attempted manipulation here.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:33 AM | Comments (22) | TrackBack
Old apps, new OS
Old apps, new OS: Minor story-correction here... a nameless writer at PC Advisor starts out: "Adobe recently announced that it wouldn't release Vista-compatible updates to current versions of many of its products." Adobe Creative Suite 3 is the current version, and it was specifically designed and tested against Windows changes introduced in Microsoft Vista. Some of the older Adobe/Macromedia applications aren't significantly affected by Vista changes; others have already received updaters to address small changes in functionality under the new OS. But not all existing applications will run under the recent OS, as Microsoft's pre-purchase information should reveal. (Adobe has also brought together the info about Microsoft's release, in the PDF Vista FAQ.) I'm not sure whether CS3 has yet surpassed the Vista installed base, so the author might just as usefully have wondered whether the slow Vista adoption was in part due to its changes upon the functionality of existing software purchases. (Ya'll know all this stuff already... I just came upon the incorrect pro tech punditry in a news search, and felt the obligation to repeat the basics of how "new software supports old".)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 20, 2007
WinXP vs Vista
WinXP vs Vista: Dell Computer stopped selling Microsoft Windows XP as an operating system when Vista arrived in January, but added it back this week in response to strong customer demand. Nothing in Dell press releases yet, but BBC has context, and Techmeme has commentary. I don't remember such a thing happening before.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 05:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2007
WMP in FF/Vis
WMP in FF/Vis: Many commercial websites use Microsoft Windows Media Player, to ensure that their copy is not ripped off for ad revenue by others. If you're in a recent Microsoft OS, but prefer not to use Microsoft's browser, then WMP has again been packaged into Netscape Plugin format, so that such protected video can be viewed in the Mozilla Firefox browser.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 15, 2007
NAB news
NAB news: There's a whole bunch of announcements coming out of the big Las Vegas video show right now. Some of these are for near-term deliverables; others are statement-of-intent to be delivered later. I don't have additional info beyond what's in the public record. But if you're awake and are reading now, then there's a lot of stuff going on....
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:08 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
April 12, 2007
The 7 Flash Experts
The 7 Flash Experts: Tom Foremski profiles MixerCast, and includes this arresting line: "Ms Cooper is keen to point out that MixerCast has two of the top experts in Adobe Flash -- out of only seven worldwide." Now I've got all these Kurosawa parallels running around in my head... who's the Toshiro Mifune of SWF work, who's the archer Seiji Miyaguchi, the soulful Takashi Shimura and the rest? Or maybe I should be thinking of Steve McQueen metaphors instead...? ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 10:19 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
Windows Update amenity
Windows Update amenity: Ever do a Windows Update process through Internet Explorer, and then have the "Reboot Later" dialog keep popping up every few minutes? This article contains the path to resetting the timeout period. [via Dan Wilson and Jim Priest]
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 07, 2007
FOSS CS3
FOSS CS3: Caught this while net-trawling... Shahid Shah compiles a list of various free-of-cost tools for media editing, categorized along the functional roles played by Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc. Some include source code, some have an open coding community, but all can be used without cash.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 05:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Diggable Digg
Diggable Digg: A bunch of links from Digg's Technology page here... Internet turns 38 today, according to WIRED, because it was April 7 1969 which saw the publishing of RFC 1, a plan on connecting different networks into a "network of networks" (retrospective, Wikipedia)... Easter Eggs, Geek Eggs, and standards-compliant church sites... retro brick phones with extended battery life, larger antenna and speaker... Japan limits political videos, Thailand limits humor videos, but in 1747 the bagpipe ban was evaded by lower-tech means... opensource licenses have difficulties too... ten Photoshop masters, five annoying ads, twenty-one tech flops, and a whole bunch of effective logos... research into recognizing images and not recognizing people... Quicksilver tips for Macintosh... a cheatsheet to English punctuation for internet writers. (And yes, I'm stuck inside the house today, how'd you guess...? ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 05, 2007
Understanding Flash Smack
Understanding Flash Smack: Ever since Ryan Stewart pointed to the notes by Ben Galbraith of a presentation by two Microsoft staffers, I've been trying to understand the quotes "flash is evil", "we are going to win" and so on. This report by David Malouf may help... he describes attending a Microsoft bootcamp as a potential staffer, and sees a disconnect from the real world: "It seems that from querying people related to the product that MS is not completely familiar with all that is going on with Adobe as they still think of Flash as a gaming and animation environment and they think of PDF as a static environment. Both statements have not been true for quite some time now." This could also explain stances such as "more searchable than flash" and the rest. Lots more here too. But I'd still like to hear from Chris and Don what they actually said and meant with quotes like "adobe pretends flash is standard", "crush google, zero-sum game" and the rest... Ben's notes are good, but it's nothing like the speaker speaking directly for himself. Anyway, David's got some insight into what makes them tick, what they see and don't see... worth a read, if you're trying to understand Microsoft's "experience" rap.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 07:01 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
March 30, 2007
"Spring ahead", redux
"Spring ahead", redux: Watch the time this weekend... some devices and services may have been manually switched to the new US timezones three weeks ago, and could toggle over again this weekend if their timing routines weren't updated at the same time their time was. (Or something like that, you know what I'm trying to say.... ;-)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2007
PS development technique
PS development technique: Russell Williams describes how Adobe Photoshop CS3 was constructed. A sample: "The change we made was going from a traditional waterfall method to an incremental development model. Before, we would specify features up front, work on features until a 'feature complete' date, and then (supposedly) revise the features based on alpha and beta testing and fix bugs... [Now] the goal is to always have the product in a state where we could say 'pencils down. You have x weeks to fix the remaining bugs and ship it'." Lots more, not about imaging, but about major application development. Interesting: the PS CS3 preview on Labs had several hundred thousand downloads, but only resulted in 25 new bugs.
Update: Product Manager John Nack has additional information on how this development methodology affected the overall release cycle.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 01, 2007
My status
My status: I've been out-of-office this week, nursing a strained quadriceps, and suspect I'll be off my feet through the weekend. If so, then I won't have access to internal email until Monday. That CNET story on "photoshop online in six months" has gotten picked up on Slashdot as well as Techmeme, but the more I read the original article the more I wonder about it... the Google angle in the lede does not seem suggested by the parts of the transcript we're allowed to read... I'm not sure how much is Bruce, how much is Martin. There's also a hit on "Adobe Remix" now, which I suspect is just the Googlebombing effect, but I don't have additional info on either of these discussions yet. I'll be on the web, although at limited effectiveness until next week.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 05:46 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 27, 2007
Sidelined
Sidelined: I took a spill on a San Francisco hill yesterday -- got a strained left quadriceps and can't walk well. But I was looking forward to meeting a score of techbloggers visiting Adobe today for new tool presentations, early advisory-board projects, and reality checks on how well these new technologies will be understood by the blogosphere. Lots of people I've been reading for years, and today was the chance to see how they think, the people behind the words, away from the bustle of a large conference -- and my leg won't let me go. Bummer. Fortunately the presentations will be in the public record, and I'll start a separate item here linking to their live reporting from the event. I was really looking forward to the interactions, though. More notes in the extended entry here on San Francisco topography, recuperation and preventative techniques.
The following has no direct tech content, but considering how much time most of us spend sitting these days, some of the notes may help in reducing downtime in the future.
I usually walk from Cole Valley in the Haight-Ashbury, up over 17th & Clayton, then down to 7th & Townsend... just over three miles, takes less than an hour at a moderate pace, lets me listen to Chinese lessons, smoke a pipe, think through the day's work. There was a light rain yesterday, and coming down Roosevelt and approaching Corona Heights, at about a 10% grade, there's been a set of plywood boards over a Department of Public Works sidewalk-improvement the last few months. Yesterday it was wet and I stepped on a leaf on the plywood -- whoosh my legs flew out and my body came down, and my left knee was doubled under my body.
It took a moment to catch my breath, and when I got up my left leg couldn't support any weight... if I locked the knee it was fine, no pain, but any bend in the left knee and it would just give way. The quadriceps are those big muscles across the front of the thigh. When my body slammed down atop the bent knee the muscles were stretched beyond their usual range, at great speed and with pressure. The muscles are still attached to the bone, but they're damaged, and will take some time to repair.
Cabbies take Roosevelt, and I managed to flag one down and get over to the office. I was able to get an icepack and some compression, but there were no crutches or canes to take the load off the injured leg. After two hours I just chalked it up and went home, where I could keep the leg elevated.
The first-aid treatment for such injuries is called RICE, for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Ice and compression help slow the bio-activity levels in the injured area, reducing damage and pain. Ibuprofen helps. I've also been doing regular gentle stretching and massage... there's a risk that other parts of the body can get tight as they compensate for the injured area.
But I was lucky, my body was loose -- I had my usual stretching and flexing while getting ready to leave the house, and I also had a good workout that morning too. My quadriceps were stretched beyond their usual range during the fall, but if I hadn't been investing time in increasing their flexibility and strength then the muscles might well have sheared from the bone, requiring surgery to repair.
A fall like that, anyone could take. The only thing we can change is how well we're prepared for it.
Technology professionals are particularly at risk, because we sit so much, use just a small range of postures. I think we've got to put extra attention into maintaining flexibility, and maintaining enough strength to resist injury. Making such investments cheap enough to be sustainable, that's the tricky part.
o Hand-weights were a revelation for me... strap them on while doing housework and you're strengthening the abdomen and back, not just the arms... even an extra two pounds per hand during daily chores gives perceptible results, at almost no extra cost.
o Doorframes can be a great stretching tool, whether hanging by the upper molding, or twisting laterally within them, or hanging forward or back to stretch leg and back muscles. Even ten seconds helps.
o Time spent brushing teeth can easily be double-purposed for stretching and flexing, going into a catcher's squat.
o Why bend when you can squat? It took some conscious effort for me to change habits, but once you decide you're no longer going to bend over to pick something up, it's an easy change to make.
o A weird little New Years Resolution for me is working out well... putting on my socks standing up. No sitting, no leaning against a wall... just focusing on balance while putting on socks. Sounds silly, but I've noticed an improvement in my overall balance since doing so.
I was lucky, with the fall I took -- no back strain, no ligament or bone damage -- just a hyperextended leg muscle to deal with. But slips and falls cause 10% of all injuries, 15% of all accidental deaths -- and those of us who work at computers are more vulnerable than people with more active daily lives. Finding ways to build protection within daily routines seems like a very important thing to do.
Posted by JohnDowdell at 08:21 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
February 15, 2007
Gartenberg at Microsoft
Gartenberg at Microsoft: Microsoft hires an industry analyst as "Enthusiast Evangelist". It's good that he believes in what he does: "Why Microsoft? There's a revolution going on. A battle for the hearts and minds of consumers in terms of their digital lives. I firmly believe that Microsoft is the only company that will enable the seamless transition for users to move in and out of the different aspects of their lives. In short, no one else comes close to presenting a complete, unified and integrated view of the digital home of the 21st century." Me, I think that we'll find a variety of technologies which work together to bring about such a future... Microsoft remains an immense power, but the entirety is more than any one player. (I'm not keen on the martial metaphors either, for similar reason.)
Posted by JohnDowdell at 09:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack