benish

Flash on the iPad: It’s not just about the future

There has been quite a hullabaloo lately over the quarrel between Apple and – more specifically, Apple’s iPhone/iPad vs. Adobe’s Flash. This was punctuated this week by Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash” which really frothed up everyone on the twitter-logs.

My first reaction – before reading the piece – was “Wow, Steve Jobs himself is addressing this – it’ll be good to hear some of the rationale behind this spat.” I was dismayed to find that while he had some valid points, there were just as many things that seemed completely false (or at least half true). Equally disappointing was the commentary I saw that on the interwebs (from people I respect) that seemed to take everything Steve said as unequivocal truth.

Other people have already offered rebuttals, and I’m neither qualified to, nor interested in, getting embroiled in that debate.

As an interactive designer, the part of the discussion that really resonated with me is the idea that HTML5 is somehow intrinsically better than Flash. That Flash is somehow evil and/or obsolete. I find this absurd.

As an aside: when designing and developing interactive/digital/multimedia experiences you should use whatever technology can best accomplish your goals. (Keeping your target audience in mind is obviously part of that.) Saying that Flash should never be used is just as ignorant and misguided as someone who tries to use Flash for every project irregardless of the needs and goals of a particular project.

Put more simply: you can create shitty sites with HTML5 just as well as you can create shitty sites with Flash. It’s not the tool, it’s how you use it. This is so obvious to me that it feels like it shouldn’t even need to be said, but apparently some people still don’t get it.

Now where were we? Oh right, HTML5 is great and Flash is obsolete. Or as Jason Kottke put it: “For 95% of all cases, Flash is, or will soon be, obsolete because there is a better way to do it that’s more accessible, more open, and more ‘web-like’.”

First, I have serious doubts that the current version of HTML5 can match the current capabilities of Flash. But since I don’t have detailed knowledge of that situation, I’ll just give that to you. I’m sure there are zealots who would argue both sides of that issue, but let’s just say that HTML5 can do everything Flash can. You still have the very real issue of browser support. How many people are using HTML5 capable browsers vs. those who have a recent version of the Flash player? These sorts of things matter when you are creating things for a wide audience.

Secondly, there is the issue of content creation tools. As John Gruber points out:
“That’s where Flash still beats HTML5; you need to be more developer than designer to create Flash-like things using HTML5.” This is not a trivial thing that can be brushed aside. In the real world, creators having tools that can help fulfill their vision is very important.

But let’s pretend again. Let’s pretend that everyone (including your mom) is using an HTML5 capable browser. Let’s pretend that somebody has stepped up and created tools to author fantastic experiences that can be delivered via HTML5. That would be great. Everyone would be happy, right?

Well, I’d still be a sad; at least a little. For a very long time Flash was the only viable option for doing certain things on the web. Some very cool, amazing thing. I’ve seen jaw-dropping, stunning experiences that were delivered via Flash – and at the time could only have been created with Flash. Things that took my breath away, or filled me with awe. You’ve seen them too. If you say you haven’t been impressed with what people have done with Flash then you haven’t been paying attention, or you’re being disingenuous.

Jobs dismissed the “full web” argument by talking about video playback and games, and people seem to be latching on to the idea that there will be a better way to build cool stuff. You know, at some point in the future. But what about all the extraordinary stuff that is already out there? Stuff that’s not a video that be re-encoded, or a game that has yet to be built.

So the thing that makes me sad is all this awesome stuff that was created in Flash – stuff that is still amazing, is still out there and could not have been created any other way. It can still enthrall, entertain and educate.

A lot of it is stuff that would be wonderful to experience on an iPad, while sitting on my couch. Except I can’t. And the way things are going, it looks like I’ll never be able to.

It feels like people are dismissing this massive legacy of spectacular web sites that use Flash as irrelevant, obsolete or unimportant. That feels like an insult to all the hard work people put in to creating those experiences. It feels like a disservice to the people out there who want to experience these things on an iPad. And it certainly doesn’t feel like it fits the spirit of an open and accessible web.

the case of the mystery envelopes and dollar bills

April 22 - Two large white envelopes are delivered to Periscopic, addressed to 2 different people. Each envelope had a single 1 dollar bill inside. No indication of who sent them.

We run the serial number from one of the bills through Where’s George, but nothing comes up.

At first we think it’s kind of mysterious and some fun thing. Dino thinks it’s suspicious and calls the cops. The cops are firmly in the suspicious camp and take the envelopes as evidence.

We learn from the police that another company in Portland got two envelopes with dollar bills as well.

The police asked for video footage from the building’s surveillance cams. This is the person who dropped off the envelopes:
http://twitpic.com/44531
http://twitpic.com/4452k

April 25 - Two more envelopes arrive, this time via the mail. Again, each contains a single dollar bill and no indication as to who sent it.

Where it starts to get really creepy is that the stamp used on the envelope is Dr. Sabin, a Virologist.

Albert Sabin developed the oral vaccine for polio. The officer on our case contacted the CDC, an infectious diseases doctor at OHSU, and a doctor at Good Samaritan. All have confirmed that polio cannot be spread via an inanimate object.

Also unusual was that the stamps were hand cancelled, meaning it just had a pen mark on it. People can request this if they don’t want their envelope to go through the processing machine. Usually people do it for weddings so the envelopes don’t get mashed. If the post office has super secret pathogen-sniffing machines, it would probably be a way to avoid it. The letter carrier for the building said clerks can also put a pen mark across a stamp if it doesn’t go through the machine by mistake.

The other company received two new envelopes as well, on the same day, with the same creepy stamp.

If anyone has any ideas about who that person in the photos is; or what is going on with someone sending us mystery dollar bills, please let me know:
http://twitter.com/benish
http://benish.org/

April 28 - Two more envelopes arrive:

http://twitpic.com/46h2e

Of note: these were delivered inside the (locked) mailbox, but that there is no barcode or post mark on them. Also, the frequency is increasing.

Note sure what exactly is inside these ones yet, as the police asked us not to open them if any more showed up.

UPDATE (4/29): The back of one of the most recent envelopes (from 4/28) had the numbers “9-13” written on the back of it (or perhaps a sloppy “9-B”):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benish/3487696032/

Also, today we heard from 2 more companies that have been receiving the same mystery dollar bills. Not sure if the details (frequency, stamp, etc.) match.

A different police officer showed up today and he commented “it is not a crime to send people money through the mail” and left the envelopes with us this time. Why did they confiscate the first 2 batches as evidence if there is nothing suspicious about this? It’s certainly not getting less suspicious or creepy as more show up.

Dino talked to another officer this evening and was told there is no investigation of any sort going on. The first 2 batches of envelopes are sitting on a shelf somewhere and haven’t been examined in any way. I can’t say I blame them (nothing criminal has actually occurred), but why take the stuff as evidence if you’re not going to do anything with it?

April 30 - Two more mystery envelopes. Now at 4 sets total. This time they have postmarks and those barcode sticker things. Still no idea where they are coming from. Still creepy.

May 2 - Two more. These finally got opened Monday (May 4th) and the mystery was revealed: it was (as many suspected) a marketing ploy. Quite lame, but we’re glad it didn’t turn out to be some nutjob. We figured it was probably something harmless like this, but in this day and age you never know. There is that little part of you that wonders, what if it is some crazy person? For us, it definitely crossed the line from mysterious to creepy pretty quickly.

The thing is, I think it would have been pretty easy to do this sort of thing and still have it be mysterious, but at the same time not freak people out. While the concept was unimpressive, it’s the execution that really made it fail spectacularly.

By popular demand, the culprit revealed.

in search of an off site backup solution

for awhile now I’ve wanted to implement an off site data backup system for archived projects. at any given moment I typically have current projects and data in at least few different places, but archived projects get burned on to a DVD and then get stuck in the safe. that data only exists in one place and if something happens there it’s years of work lost. granted, it’s old work… but still.

so what I need is backup to my backup. it doesn’t have to be particularly fast, it just has to work in case of emergency. I’ve looked in to tape drives once in awhile but always gave up before finding something that seemed reasonable. today i found the Iomega REV, which seems like as good a deal as any tape drive backup I’ve seen. it’s still pretty expensive, but all these things seem to be overly expensive.

so i was seriously considering this and then it occurred to me: that drive plus the disks is $569, for what ends up being 600GB of storage. I can get a cheap 750GB external drive for less than $100. All my project backups combined are about 200GB (thank you, CDFinder). So I probably have a ways to go before filling up a 750GB drive, and by the time it’s full a new drive will be even cheaper and bigger.

it seemed like a tape drive would be the right solution for occasional off site backups, but I’m just not seeing how it makes any sense when I can get five 750GB drives for the same cost as 600GB of tape drive backup.

The hard drives are obviously slightly less portable, but not by much. And the hard drives have the benefit of working on any computer (no need for the tape drive to read the disks).

am I missing something? does anyone have a great solution for backing up data off site?

select specific cells in a table on a web page

Let’s say you want to select a certain row (or column) of text from a table on a web page, perhaps to copy & paste the content. Simply clicking & dragging selects everything across multiple rows & columns, which is a mess when you paste it somewhere.

On a Mac, using Camino 2: hold down the Command key (a.k.a. Apple key) and click on cells (to select 1 at a time), or drag across a row or column to select a series of cells.

Doesn’t seem to work in Safari. Suck it Safari! Camino FTW!

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