Category: Flash

  • Thoughts on Adobe …A Parody of Mr. Jobs

    Thoughts on Adobe …A Parody of Mr. Jobs

    This is a direct parody of Steve Jobs letter about Flash.It is intended to be thought provoking, insightful, and inciting.

    Being a Macintosh SE, iPhone, iPad, PowerMac, PowerBook, home built PC, Windows using web, Flash, print developer that has working in the training development, corporate marketing, and software development industries for too long… I couldn’t read Steve’s letter without calling BS. Read this with an open mind and consider the end user, not the corporations. I want Flash, my kids want Flash, why because some developer’s do amazing work on this platform and we should have access to it. Content is king. Enjoy… (more…)

  • HTML5 can’t replace Flash

    HTML5 can’t replace Flash

    I was talking to a co-worker today and had a realization. HTML5 can never replace flash.

    One of the primary goals of HTML and JavaScript is transparency, the accessibility to the code that drives the page. Exposing code so that others can learn from it. In fact this attribute is credited with the proliferation of the web. This poses a serious risk for some web content. If you produced a highly interactive, community driven game would you want you intelectual property (ip) exposed? Web sites don’t expose their business logic. No one expects Amazon to expose how they drive their shopping logic. If Poptropica, a popular game/community for kids, was produces in HTML and JavaScript anyone that visited your site could copy the code, modify it, republish it, and monetize that ip. Who would want that? So think twice before wishing that HTML5 should replace Flash.

  • Web design presentation at Taylor Street Elementary

    Web design presentation at Taylor Street Elementary

    Today I did a presentation on web design and design process to my daughters’ gate classes. It was an exciting opportunity to offer their classes some insight into the exciting world of design and learning new technologies.

    So for any of the kids at Taylor Street Elementary reading this… I enjoyed speaking with you today, and look forward to learning with you again.

  • Internet Explorer should die

    Internet Explorer should die

    Every now and then the festering issue of IE as a viable browser rears it’s ugly head. This eventuality usually occurs right around the release of a new version. Microsofts latest iteration, IE8, was slated to be released without standards mode being the default rendering mode. With all the progress that the web comunity has made with standards why wouldn’t this be the default? (more…)

  • Cool Actionscript…and it’s FREE!!!

    Cool Actionscript…and it’s FREE!!!

    I’ve got a few slick scripts that I thought I would share with the world.

    These are simple scripts for toggling buttons, and it works without components.
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  • Where is web design today?

    Where is web design today?

    Many people now rely on the web as a source for their lifestyles; research, maps, gossip, movie rentals, shopping. Now that this tool is so heavily used I thought it would be good to think about where it started, and where it is today from a design perspective. In the early days websites were pretty horrible to look at, lots of blinking, flashing things, dancing hamsters, BIG FONTS, red text on black backgrounds etc… (I could go on, but I know some of you are already getting nauseous. Thankfully most of the world wide web has moved past designs like these:
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  • Adobe Captivate V2 and V3 Review

    Adobe Captivate V2 and V3 Review

    Getting back to design and development topics I thought it would be valuable to offer my insight on this product. Being a courseware developer over the last 11 years or so, I’ve worked with a lot of tools. For most courses developing in either HTML, or Flash or a combination of both is my preferred method. It offers a vast amount of control and creativity. These methods do require a higher level of skill in web development, animation, and scripting but the results are well worth the cost. On the other hand Adobe Captivate offers some flexibility and a relatively easy learning curve for developers, and instructional designers and can result in a very professional result. Here’s my take the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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  • Updates..for everything!

    Updates..for everything!

    Here it is, my site design is fractured and disjointed. I admit it. I added the blog capability, and started a gallery portion, and then never integrated everything together. Shame on me. So now that I have a lull in the storm of projects that were on my plate I am going to start working on tying everything together.

    I’m still debating the gallery though…Maybe someone has a suggestion. I could use the gallery I started to set up. Or Flickr, which I already use. Or build something in Flash. Or… See it’s a problem too many choices.

    Lastly I’m excited because I get to ride in Santa Cruz tomorrow! I’m planning on hitting the hills going towards the summit of Highway 9. It’s a mixed blessing, as I haven’t done much climbing in the last few years so this may be a very painful day in, and out, of the saddle.

  • Damn the Standards…Full speed ahead!

    Damn the Standards…Full speed ahead!

    I was browsing through some sports coverage and ran across this link. It’s an amazing (read: bad) site that ignores all the standard rules of engagement in web design and development. (more…)

  • Click to Activate Flash Still an Issue?

    Click to Activate Flash Still an Issue?

    It’s amazing to me that sites that rely on Flash for their main navigation have not taken the steps to eliminate the “Click to activate and use this control” messages from their sites. If you haven’t seen this message before you must be avoiding flash sites. To recap: Eolas has a patent dispute with Microsoft, forcing them to make activeX controls require users to click the “control” before they can interact with it. Annoying to say the least. If you want to read more go here. Needless to say this article was inspired because of the staggering number of sites I’ve run across in the last month that have not incorporated the JavaScript solutions that are available. Here are the favorites:

    If you own, or manage a site that uses Flash as a navigation element, fix this, please. Better yet…use CSS navigation instead. As much as I like Flash, does it have to be used for everything?