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“The World is Moving to HTML 5″ and Other Flights of Fancy.

A bit of a techie article but really hits the major points of this debate in the most clear and concise way I’ve read yet! It comes from someone who has no real stake in seeing Flash stick around. Found this in a response to a Mashable article titled “Apple Didn’t Kill Flash, HTML 5 did.” Horrible title. Flash is NOT dead… But that’s neither here nor there..

To me the weirdest thing I see everyone talking and raving about is HTML 5. Sure, it most likely will be a great thing…but it’s far from being a standard and lest everyone forget there are all the browser & OS discrepancies, and the fact that there are hundreds of tools for hundreds of different uses and applications…

Best bit from this article:

The world will move to HTML X when Flash X is not needed, it is a non-argument, no amount of insane zealous preaching from within the idealist world of either side will make this happen in the real world. The market will use whatever tools provide the best solutions for the best return on investment.

Steve Jobs publishes some ‘thoughts on Flash’… many, many thoughts on Flash — Engadget.

Here we go again…. So at first glance after reading Steve Jobs’ latest perspective on all things flash & web, I have to say I started to feel he was making some valid points. I’ve always agreed with the mouse verses touch issue, but disagreed on the video issue and haven’t seen enough true tests to truly understand the battery life issue. As far as the developing in flash for native iPhone, I disagree, but can see his point a little… REMINDER: I absolutely LOVE my iPhone!! and I absolutely HATE working on a mac on a day to day basis… Just sayin…

Then I let it all sink in… and PLEASE if you read this, read the comments following the press release… Here you’ll get a true cross sample of the overall opinions on this press release and suprisingly (or not) it’s largely negative… The problem is the backbone of his arguments are based on this idea of Apple as ‘open’ and non-proprietary and being so “new” and removed from what he calls the PC era… Crazy-talk…Apple was invented in the ‘PC era. The internet, computers, mobile devices, etc were all spawned in the past and the grow and change to suit the user needs and keep up with technological advances. To think Apple is any different is weird. But to then come off like the creator behind every technological advance in the modern era is preposterous…

It’s also funny his thoughts between what is open, closed, and what is the future (as if peering up from his crystal ball). HTML 5 looks like a great advancement but it is in no way close to being a “standard” yet. h.264 is great for video, but will also be great for some serious licensing $$$ in the next few years.. HTML wants to support ‘ogg’ video anyway, which is buggy and has no strict standards in how its created.

Then there’s the whole idea of choice. Sure Apple has made some great judgment calls on which way to go with products and technology that have revolutionized the industry… But it also has made some serious judgment issues and has its share of bombed project ideas… Jobs doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s effectively trying to take the ability to decide away… He can’t help but use language in the press release to re-enforce the “best ever” mentality at Apple.

Ultimately people will decide what technologies and devices stay or go. We didn’t want Bill Gates deciding everything for us 10 years ago… Do we really want Steve Jobs to do that now???

The Complete Guide to Avoiding Online Scams (for Your Less Savvy Friends and Relatives) – Scams – Lifehacker.

Thought I’d pass this link along to those folks who find themselves struggling a bit with all things ‘internetty’… I’ve spent a fair share of time helping friends and relatives remove viruses and a handy browse through an article like this may definitely save somebody some trouble sometime…

Upon a quick look I can only say… “I want to go to there…” – The specs are insane!

Western Digital – My Passport Essential SE 1TB External USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive – Black – WDBABM0010BBK-NESN.

Tiny (compared to my current WD External Drive)..and no power cord needed! Good times!

GScreen’s Dual-Screen Spacebook Coming Soon(ish) – GScreen Spacebook – Gizmodo.

I’ve been a sucker for the laptop for years now (dunno if I could ever go back to a desktop on a day to day basis). But I also really like having a second monitor hooked up when I’m at the office. Having the option to slide out a second monitor would be fantastic!

After reading this write up, of course it seems there are a few issues to iron out. Weight – 12lbs isn’t a dealbreaker. Battery life – probably won’t be amazing, but I currently only get about an hour and a half on the machine I’ve got now, so again not a huge deal (unless it was like 10 minutes…). Cost – Don’t have a spare $3000 lying around right now…

The other specs look pretty good as well (4gb ram, high end graphics card, fast 320 gb hard drive, etc… If both monitors are above 15″, this one is definitely going on the laptop ‘wishlist’!

How to Fix Annoying YouTube Jumpiness in Firefox – Firefox – Lifehacker.

This is a huge tip! I couldn’t stand the pauses in video viewing in firefox and thought for a while it was just my computer…

So first off, sorry for slacking on this blog. Granted, nobody on earth may be reading this, but alas I apologize anyway. Lately, its been way too easy to plop some interesting tidbit on my ‘facebook’ page instead of here, plus things have been ‘mad-crazy’ the last month or so…
Spent the last day or so trying like mad to backup all my files as the laptop on which I type is doing that ‘downward spiral’ most windows machines are prone to after a year and a half of constant use. It started with a few flaky actions here or there and over the past week has led to daily crashes, weird screen flickers and general ‘wonkiness’ (kinda like whats going on with the world these days)…
The plus side is a rebuild gives a nice chance to get reorganized. I can start fresh, clear away all the crap, and get another solid year of computery ‘good times’ back in action. I kinda wish there was a way to do that in life as well.
I’ve got a weird anxiety about all this data I’ve amassed over the past year and a half. Copying 65+ gb of stuff off a machine looks insane and quite daunting to reorganize. I’m sure by this time next week it will be ‘usiness as usual’, but heading into seems a bit freaky.
And it got me thinking about what would happen if I lose all that info. Sure, its amazing to live in a time where you can have access to a terabyte of drive space. But what about backing that up? My goal is to have all my music, videos, pics, etc organized into a nice neat bundle on a drive for instant access (and to get rid of boxes upon boxes of CD’s), but will that hold up?
Okay, time to head off to work, clear off the machine and get the process started…
Laptop…I’ll see ya on the other side…

Today had some fantastic presentations…

Finally! One of the sticking points for people NOT wanting to use Flash has been searchability (SEO ya know…). Now Adobe is working with Google and Yahoo to get this all rectified and this is a very good thing!! Read more…