"RIA degradation"? whats all that fuzz about?

Over the last few days, I've been noticing (am sure that I'm not the only one) a lot of 'bashing' between adobe and microsoft enthusiasts; Last time, one such 'discussions' went to the level getting to personal bashing. Today, there is a new 'discussion' happening out there. About microsoft's SilverLight and Adobe Flash, and other related stuffs, and of course, which term was first to be created: Rich Internet Apps or Rich Interactive Apps.

I thought I should note down my personal take on these kind of discussions.

IMHO, by fueling these kind of discussions, adobe employees are gonna do no good to Flash. They are only gonna make things easier for MS people out there, to popularize their 'silverlight' among developers. Here why is why I think so:

As someone in today's discussions pointed out, Microsoft wouldn't have to struggle much in getting their plugin to windows users; Many techies will download it, just for the heck of it; and for those who don't, there is always the windows update. If a corporate user had to update his flash player to the latest version, chances of getting his system-admin do it for him is not very high. But an update from Microsoft, they'll readily apply that patch. Add a few 'security bug fixes' and call it a security update, and home users will download it right away. Apple users are always ready for heavy updates; Who knows, Microsoft might even get Apple to agree to include it with their updates ;o). Linux users always had problems. They never had Flash player 8! (And if they are desperate, they always have Wine at their disposal!)

So making people download their plugin wouldn't really be a big deal for Microsoft. What would be tough for them is to get developers to start building apps for their plugin. Flash / Flex developers are their easiest target. Getting a .Net developer to understand the 'timeline' would be much tougher than getting a AS developer to learn some C#, If you guys have seen C# code, you know what I mean. Now, with all these crazy discussions, the flash siders are indirectly getting more and more developers educated about their rival technology. Quiet a lot of developers would go check it out, just because if these discussions.

I like flash for what it is today. And I feel Flash is the best at doing what it does. But as I say it, my consciousness pricks me: This "Flash is the best" feeling comes to me, because I've known Flash and actionscript longer than I've known my best friend! I heard about WPF/E like what - last year? I've never really developed anything using it. So I can't really say, can I? May be WPF/E is better? Is that why all these Flash supporters are paranoid over things tiny things like, "MS is trying to spoil the real meaning of RIA" etc? You guys end up creating a doubt in my mind!!

Honestly, if someday I learn that sparklight is the best for something that I'm trying to do, I'll go ahead and attempt it. And if some other technology feels suitable, I'd use that, of course. There was a period when I was a die-hard macromedia fan. And back then, Adobe was our villain. I used to evangelize about macromedia products to my collegues and friends. I even successfully made a few of my designers use Fireworks, over their beloved PhotoShop. And then one fine morning, Adobe and macromedia joined hands! Thats when I realized, all these brand bashing is so silly; All that evangelism I did for fireworks went for nothing!

As I look back, if it was microsoft which had bought macromedia, we would've all ended up being in one happy family! Microsoft would've probably announced next version of Flash and Dreamweaver integrated into next version of Visual Studio. Who knows, Macromedia would've taken its cross-platform culture into microsoft, and there would've been a .Net runtime for all major OS platforms by now! May be, Freehand and Flashpaper would've still existed! ( I'm getting to like this imaginary part now, LoL!)

So, I don't really see a reason why all this bashing must happen between these two companies. Isn't there a way we can all co-exist? Let Microsoft-ers call their apps Rich Interactive apps. Lets call ours Rich Internet Apps. And if you feel your technology is not as good as the others', get back to the drawing board and get us more features. We developers will happily buy your products and use them!

All that said, I feel the name 'silverlight' is just a lame copy of 'Flash'. Couldn't they come up with an original name!!

And I don't mean disrespect to any of you guys out there. You are all my heros, after all! I gotta go catch some sleep now. Its 4:20AM in this part of the world!

When style meets substance...

Philips and Swarowski team up to create an new range of line of fashionable tech accessories called Active Crystals. Details here.
The lock-like USB drive looks really cool. Ideal for a gift to a girlfriend ;o)

Now all I need to do is find a geeky girlfriend by the time that product is launched. Anyone available? :P

Via digg.

Google acquires doubleClick for $3.1 Billion

Through NewyorkTimes

Considering the fact that adobe bought macromedia for just around 300 million dollars more than that, this is a surprisingly huge deal!

3,462 miles of Atlantic ocean ? Just swim it, says google maps

A friend today showed me something really funny on google maps. Search for directions from London to New York. And follow the directions. ( If you are too busy to read it all, check out No 37 in the directions list. )

It got me thinking, may be google can make some money out of those directions as well. They can display adsense ads next to those directions. For eg: Next to directions between two ports, probably they can show ads for a cruise ship company; directions between two airports, they can probably have ads for some airline company, or probably a travel agent who can help u get a ticket. ;o)

I wont be surprised if someone told me that google is already working on it.

flash goddess 2007 results announced. Sandy's got a runners-up!

A colleague and friend of mine, Sandy Tnay (or 3D, as I call her-why?) won a runners-up for her site.

http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/FITCawards.html

From the flashgoddess site,

"The first ever annual Flash Goddess Award is designed to recognize, promote, and reward talented, yet not quite discovered, women designers/developers working in the Flash industry."

Sandy is one of the two designers helping us with the UI for our social networking application. She's been producing some really cool designs, over the last few months. The fact that being a fresh grad out of college, she found her place next to the likes of Stacey Mulcahy is really impressive!

Congrats to all the winners!

Google Tisp, a new product from google!

I ROTFL-ed at this particular disclaimer note:

We take your privacy very seriously. So we treat all TiSP users' waste-related personal information with tremendous discretion, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

And this one:

Why should I switch to Google TiSP?
.....
It's good for you. Your FREE TiSP service includes a Google Toolbar-based analysis of your dietary habits and genetic predispositions, along with recommendations for healthier living.

Happy April fools day folks! Have lotsa fun!!

apollo alpha build available on Labs

I guess this would be one of the most anticipated releases on adobe Labs for a long time now.

For starters, the runtime can be downloaded here. This will help you view all the cool examples developers are gonna be churning out in the next few days :)

The SDK and docs are available here. If you'd wanna start building applications based on Apollo runtime, this download is for you.

This page here has the online documentation. A pocket guide put up by Mike chambers and others is available here

Thats all the basic links you need to get started. Watch out for what the developer world is doing with Apollo, on MXNA.

Personally, am pretty thrilled about the HTML control provided by the apollo runtime (like many others out there). Am not gonna be building a really needy of a web browser inside Flash, to me it means, all that formatting issues we got with getting images and text together in htmlText in flash html textfield are gone! + a real good performance improvement ( hopefully)

I can't wait to have my hands dirty with Apollo now. But gotta be rushing to work!
Good luck people!

BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal

For someone like me, who doesn't watch TV (on the TV set), thats an interesting move.

Read more about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6411017.stm
or here : http://www.youtube.com/press_room_entry?entry=0VMEPAJuK7Y

How's this: "looking for ppl to make games (dont have enough money to hire ppl yet)"

There is this mailthread on flashCoders today: this guy started out as "Anyone hate flash 9 already" (!!!!) . Yea right.. he hates Flash9, even before its released ;o) And in one recent mail replies he goes
"looking for ppl to make games with or hire someone(dont have enough money to hire ppl yet)".

I kept archiving mails in that thread everytime it popped up in my gmail inbox since morning.

And just now when I was about to go sleep, I saw that post had quiet a lot of replies and decided to check out how people were reacting. And came across a reply, which had this link : http://positionrelative.wordpress.com/2007/01/23/craigs-pissed/. A discussion that looked so silly till then looked turned so informative, just with one link!

The link above points to a blog post, which quotes another 'flagged and removed ' post from craigslist (author unknown). If the original author ever happens to read it here, - you deserve a warm applause man! ( and like the author of the post at position : relative mentions, "Designers everywhere owe him a hot coffee and a big hug." )

I thought I'd cross post the content of the original post in here, for a quicker reference. Hope guys at position : relative, or the actual author won't mind!

Post from CraigsList

Every day, there are more and more Craigs List posts seeking “artists” for everything from auto graphics to comic books to corporate logo designs. More people are finding themselves in need of some form of illustrative service.

But what they’re NOT doing, unfortunately, is realizing how rare someone with these particular talents can be.

To those who are “seeking artists”, let me ask you; How many people do you know, personally, with the talent and skill to perform the services you need? A dozen? Five? One? …none?

More than likely, you don’t know any. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be posting on craigslist to find them.

And this is not really a surprise.

In this country, there are almost twice as many neurosurgeons as there are professional illustrators. There are eleven times as many certified mechanics. There are SEVENTY times as many people in the IT field.

So, given that they are less rare, and therefore less in demand, would it make sense to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?

Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!)

Would you be able to seriously even CONSIDER offering your web hosting service the chance to have people see their work, by viewing your website, as their payment for hosting you?

If you answered “yes” to ANY of the above, you’re obviously insane. If you answered “no”, then kudos to you for living in the real world.

But then tell me… why would you think it is okay to live out the same, delusional, ridiculous fantasy when seeking someone whose abilities are even less in supply than these folks?

Graphic artists, illustrators, painters, etc., are skilled tradesmen. As such, to consider them as, or deal with them as, anything less than professionals fully deserving of your respect is both insulting and a bad reflection on you as a sane, reasonable person. In short, it makes you look like a twit.

A few things you need to know;

1. It is not a “great opportunity” for an artist to have his work seen on your car/’zine/website/bedroom wall, etc. It IS a “great opportunity” for YOU to have their work there.

2. It is not clever to seek a “student” or “beginner” in an attempt to get work for free. It’s ignorant and insulting. They may be “students”, but that does not mean they don’t deserve to be paid for their hard work. You were a “student” once, too. Would you have taken that job at McDonalds with no pay, because you were learning essential job skills for the real world? Yes, your proposition it JUST as stupid.

3. The chance to have their name on something that is going to be seen by other people, whether it’s one or one million, is NOT a valid enticement. Neither is the right to add that work to their “portfolio”. They get to do those things ANYWAY, after being paid as they should. It’s not compensation. It’s their right, and it’s a given.

4. Stop thinking that you’re giving them some great chance to work. Once they skip over your silly ad, as they should, the next ad is usually for someone who lives in the real world, and as such, will pay them. There are far more jobs needing these skills than there are people who possess these skills.

5. Students DO need “experience”. But they do NOT need to get it by giving their work away. In fact, this does not even offer them the experience they need. Anyone who will not/can not pay them is obviously the type of person or business they should be ashamed to have on their resume anyway. Do you think professional contractors list the “experience” they got while nailing down a loose step at their grandmother’s house when they were seventeen?

If you your company or gig was worth listing as desired experience, it would be able to pay for the services it received. The only experience they will get doing free work for you is a lesson learned in what kinds of scrubs they should not lower themselves to deal with.

6. (This one is FOR the artists out there, please pay attention.) Some will ask you to “submit work for consideration”. They may even be posing as some sort of “contest”. These are almost always scams. They will take the work submitted by many artists seeking to win the “contest”, or be “chosen” for the gig, and find what they like most. They will then usually have someone who works for them, or someone who works incredibly cheap because they have no originality or talent of their own, reproduce that same work, or even just make slight modifications to it, and claim it as their own. You will NOT be paid, you will NOT win the contest. The only people who win, here, are the underhanded folks who run these ads. This is speculative, or “spec”, work. It’s risky at best, and a complete scam at worst. I urge you to avoid it, completely. For more information on this subject, please visit www.no-spec.com.

So to artists/designers/illustrators looking for work, do everyone a favor, ESPECIALLY yourselves, and avoid people who do not intend to pay you. Whether they are “spec” gigs, or just some guy who wants a free mural on his living room walls. They need you. You do NOT need them.

And for those who are looking for someone to do work for free… please wake up and join the real world. The only thing you’re accomplishing is to insult those with the skills you need. Get a clue.

Though the post talks more about illustrators and graphics people, I guess the same happens to almost every young professional at the beginning of their career.
When one of the commentors at position : relative said, "this should be taught in colleges around the world", I couldn't agree more!

Bug with V2 Alert component?

A collegue was telling me that he was having troubles with displaying alerts using the V2 Alert component. The alert message was getting truncated at some point or other. I set out to investigate the problem, and saw that this only happens when the alert displays an icon in it. A simple alert (with no icon) didn't seem to exhibit this problem.
Try this out:

Alert.show("Hello world, this is a test implementation", "Alert", Alert.OK, this, alertHandler, "alertIcon", Alert.OK);

"alertIcon" is the linkage ID of a 25 * 35 px movieclip in library.
Do a test movie, and the alert displays "Hello world, this is a test implement". As you see, the last word is partially truncated.
After a few minutes of fiddling around with the mx.controls.alertClasses.AlertForm class, I figured out that editing the following statement(lin no 213) in getSize method helps
before:
width = Math.min(extent.width + 4 + 8, 2 * bWidth);
after:
width = Math.max(extent.width + 4 + 8, 2 * bWidth);
Please note that when you do this change, And when your alert message is really small ( like "hello world") you'll still see that the alert box is a lil too wider. But in a practical sense, most messages that you alert users are atleast 3 -4 words long, so this wouldn't be as much as a problem as losing out some data!

I googled for this issue a bit, and since I didn't find much info on that, thought I'd post it up here.