No Boundaries

I must admit that I’m getting more and more exasperated with the Apple v Adobe war that has been raging for about a half of a year now. I’m sure that I don’t have any idea as to the direction that the Internet may be taking in the near future and I’m equally sure that no-one else does either. I think that the original scheme was that the internet would become a set of pipes which delivered expensive curated content to a few walled-gardens where those loyal to the particular hotel-keep would consume in contented oblivion while shelling out a considerable sum on a monthly basis for devices, connections, apps, emags and eshows, bumpers and all other necessary appurtenances. Beyond the walled gardens would be a virus-ridden, porn-infested, aesthetically-unappealing hell that best be left alone by any of any common sense. The internet would be third-world in character, as if crafted by the likes of Joan Didion or Somerset Maugham.

Google and it’s Android have busted this all wide open, sending Palm into the arms of HP and everybody else back to the drawing board. Long live liberation.

This would be good and nice, were it true, but it is complicated by Apple’s success in widely distributing both the iPad and the iPhone, the failure to launch, thus far, of all but a few Android devices which can hope to rival Apple’s creations, and Adobe’s failure to fully grasp the true condition that it’s condition is in.

Continue reading

I’ve run into the same post on a half-dozen blogs recently.  It varies a little from place to place, but this is the gist of it:  ” I just wanted to let you know.  FLASH IS BAD.  IT KILLS LOTS OF PUPPIES.  That’s why we don’t do it anymore.  Ever.  Talk to us and we will save you.”  Please insert any derogatory and relatively baseless comment you wish for that above.  Self-serving Flash-bashing is afoot upon the land.  Flash now rivals Elvis Presley’s hips as something that should never be seen by the children.

My favorite so far was a post on Smashing Magazine which reported the results of a survey of designer portfolio sites and concluded that only a small fraction use Flash.  Way way down at the bottom it went on to say that the sites of designers who use motion (aka Flash) were excluded from the survey.  Something of a head-scratcher.

The hyperbole appears to be inversely correlative with the economy.

The thing most often cited in the “Flash is dangerous” posts is search engine optimization.  This is not a problem without many solutions.  It reminds me of a realtor telling a home-owner to mow over the three-acre rose garden because it can’t be seen from the front of the house.  Curb appeal and search engine optimization run in the same circles.

Continue reading