oddhammer

This entry on HTML5 and Flash needs to be read, and read again.

I remember playing with Flash 3 and animating some simple shapes around. At the time I thought it was interesting, but there really wasn't much you could do other than animating. If you wanted to code complex things then you went with JavaScript.

I also remember playing with animation through JavaScript in Dreamweaver 3 (or 4?) over 10 years ago and marveling at how it would enable me to create animation directly through JavaScript without having to use the Flash Player. But reality set in and I realized that if I wanted to reach over 90% of the users out there I should just use the Flash Player because animating with JavaScript (at that time) was a nightmare with the different browsers.

Reality is beginning to creep back into the HTML5 vs. Flash discussion and it's becoming clear that we have a few more years before the real HTML5 revolution sets in. The question is, will the users and developers wait, or will Adobe fail where Macromedia didn't?

In a move that appears to be another step away from its Flash platform, Adobe has submitted the code for its Flash-based Flex framework to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to be managed as an independent project.  more here

The US space shuttle program is winding down, and being a great procrastinator I’ve waited until the last remaining launches to finally go see one.  So I picked STS-127 to try to view a launch.  The first scheduled launch was just before dawn (so little chance of weather mucking things up), and all that good stuff.  Well, a hydrogen leak ended the first two launch attempts.  This past weekend we made the long trek (about 8hr drive) to Cape Canaveral again to watch it launch.  (it didn’t.. after two more attempts). 

I had a lot of work to do so I spent Friday afternoon working away on Flash coding in the back of a big Yukon.  Since the shuttle didn’t launch Saturday and it didn’t scrub until the last minutes of the countdown on Sunday I also spent much of Sunday night and Monday morning pecking away on my laptop as we hurtled along I-95.  My laptop is decent for doing coding work.. but not when it’s shaking all over the place.

When I got back today and transferred what I was working on over to my “workstation” and opened it up in Flex I laughed.  The code was just sitting there so still and I could see so much of it.  I have a 24” monitor turned vertically and set to 1200x1920, and a 19” monitor on either side of it, so I see over 100 lines of code at once.  I was SO happy to be home, especially since this afternoon the fifth launch attempt was scrubbed too.  If it doesn’t launch this Wednesday it’ll break a record for the number of scrubbed launch attempts. 

it’s all about persistence

A few months ago I finally upgraded my cell phone and went for a Samsung Omnia from Verizon. Before I bought it I read some reviews on it and tinkered around with others in the store and it was one of those “lesser of two evils” things where I couldn’t find anything that was perfect so I picked something that sucked the least. 

One of the things about the omnia that I didn’t like was it came with Flash Lite 2.1..  after 3.1 was released.  Ah well.  So I tinkered around some with packaging some little apps that I created and got 3.1 on it that way.. but it’s basically the “stand alone” player and not used for the browser.  I don’t develop mobile apps for my day job, so this sub-par Flash support was more of a nuisance when I was browsing for fun and not something I really needed.

Well, last week I got around to looking at upgrading Opera and saw loads of articles hinting that the beta version would use Flash Lite 3.1.. I downloaded and installed it..  and it still had 2.1.  oh well..  In the process of looking for info on the Opera beta I stumbled upon Skyfire.  It gives me full Flash 10 (10,0,22,87) support on my little mobile phone.  It has some pretty big quirks as far as UI (like entering text in Flash apps), but it’s nice to have another option.

So just for kicks I dug around and looked at some of my old performance tests and some other tests out there on the web..  and whoa..  I was shocked.  My cell phone ran the tests faster than my old XP rig (which I was playing Half Life 2 on not long ago..).  But on the graphics heavy tests it kind of freaked out..  an example is when I ran this test my little omnia was chugging along at 25fps and then sometimes it would jump to 30 or 35.  It wasn’t smooth at all.  When I added more objects for it to spin around things would get really exciting.  The graphics would freeze up, then the Flash Player would rush to display everything.  If I put 7 objects on there it would drop to 10fps for a few seconds, then zip up to 40fps, then stabilize at about 30fps for a few seconds, then drop back.  But.. . .  the ability to run Flash Player 10 on something I can fit in my pocket?  Wow. 

Now if the Omnia would just work a little better as a phone..  hehe.