Probably the most common statement found on the millions of blogs floating around the WWW is (and I paraphrase) “Forgive me followers for I have sinned… It has been umpteen days since my last post.” This is usually followed by a number of excuses that range anywhere from “My dog died and he was the only one who knew my WordPress password.” to “My mom’s boyfriend pawned my laptop to buy ZZ Top tickets when I was away at Fat Camp.”

Well, my story is really no different. “Some oil-soaked billionaire d-bags hijacked my favorite sports team, leaving me and thousands of former NBA fans angry and heartbroken.” That, and I haven’t really had much to say beyond an occasional tweet.

Today, I asked myself why that is. Why so quiet? For a while, I had a really good excuse – even better than ZZ Top tickets. I was working with a company that I knew was following my blog and everything I wanted to say was either restricted by NDA, or just better kept to myself.

But, that is no longer the case. Now I am a relatively free man (subject to change). So, I could in theory say whatever the hell I want. For instance, I could say “Brian in Accounting is having an affair with Jill in Marketing.” But that would be wrong – because it (probably) isn’t true, and besides Brian’s divorce is nearly final and Jill’s fiancé Karl is stationed in Afghanistan (girls have needs too, you know).

Hmmm, I seem to have drifted off topic. Let’s forget about Brian and Jill’s torrid affair for the moment, because, as I mentioned before, it never really happened (probably). I think the real issue is a little larger (for me). Specifically, that this, my primary blog, is also my ‘professional’ blog. What I say here is intended to be a combination of verifiable facts and my own reasonably informed personal opinions that I would not mind having my peers read. As such, this isn’t really a forum for personal rants or criticism. This is ‘the high road’. Here, I like to follow the ‘Cowboy Bob’ rule “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Ok, so no office gossip, no personal rants, limited criticism, no confidential ‘inside’ information, no petty complaining about my favorite team being hijacked by oil-soaked billionaire d-bags… check, check and double check. But what does that leave?

How about a really cool (albeit dry) snippet of code:

// Reversing an array using the map() method
public function reverseArr (item:*, i:int, array:Array):String
{
    return array[array.length-(1+i)];
}
 
var helloArr:Array = ["H","e","l","l","o"];// because strings don't behave like arrays in ActionScript
trace (helloArr.map(reverseArr).join(""));// "olleH" // 'join("")' removes commas

Magic, eh?

OK, I have to win some kind of award for most inflammatory (and misleading) post title for this one. Like many of you, I have been reading the numerous posts (see links below) following the anti-Flash position Steve Jobs presented at a recent Apple shareholder meeting. I had considered writing about it, or at least commenting, but seeing how polar the issue is, decided to sit back and let others fight this battle.

Then, this afternoon I was contacted by a friend who was curious about my opinion on the matter and my response ended up being much of what I’d originally considered posting. So, since the bulk of the work is already done, I am going to go ahead and paraphrase what I wrote:

…

There is no lack of controversy whenever Apple does/says anything. People tend to be so fanatical on both sides of any Apple related issue, i.e. Mac/PC, and now Apple/Adobe.

The funny thing is so many (most?) Flash designers/developers are using Macs now – I was amazed to see how many folks were carrying around their silver notebooks at FITC last week. For a moment I was actually a little embarrassed when I pulled out my Toshiba TabletPC ( I should have flipped the screen around and started taking notes – heh! ). I feel kind of like Donald Sutherland in ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (I’ll probably be the 2nd to last person to ’switch’).

As for my take on the dispute, I think the real issue is the same as with iTunes/iPod/iShuffle/iTouch(?)/etc. Apple’s mission is to control and monetize the user’s access to media. They do this by locking down the hardware and preventing 3rd party access to the application stack. The Flash player is a doorway that would allow access to content, media and functionality that Apple wouldn’t control.

In the short term, this probably makes sound business sense – after all, how many people didn’t buy an iPhone because it lacked a number of common features? Now compare that to the number who would use Flash to bypass iTunes and other partner controlled channels if they could. Other companies do this as well. Sony, for instance, limited the functionality of Flash on the PSP to prevent competition from 3rd party game manufacturers.

In the long term, Apple’s closed, anti-competitive stance may come back to haunt them. They have played the ‘underdog’ role for so long, they seem oblivious to the fact that they are now as much or more of a mono-culture than Microsoft ever was. This opens the door for the next underdog. As for the iPhone, there are a number of soon to be released devices that could fill the void (and a few suitable alternatives in the meantime). Mobile devices are short lived anyway, 6 months from now we may all be drooling over an Android based device with WiMax, 64 GB SSD, removable battery, A2DP, 10 MP video, 5x optical zoom and plays any damn format you choose including Flash. “Yes, I have a dream.”

…

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/05/steve_jobs_pans_flash_on_the_iphone.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=777
http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9886265-60.html?tag=nefd.top
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206901923

Returned from FITC Amsterdam a few days ago and finally feel like I’ve recovered from the 9 hour time difference (among other things). Definitely had a good time and learned a few things I’ll likely apply in future projects. Specifically, the Papervision3D workshop, though a bit disorganized, was a nice precursor to P3D development. I came away with a better appreciation for the value of the Papervision3D library, particularly for projects you wouldn’t think of as ‘3D’. Seb Lee-Delisle’s demonstration of particles was also quite inspiring. Perhaps the highlight of the conference for me was André Michelle’s experiments with audio generation/manipulation in Flash. He and Joa Ebert have built a suite of analog-era inspired audio processors (now part of Hobnox) that are amazing. But what resonated the most with me (pun sort of intended) was his use of non-graphical particles (and filtered byte arrays) to generate sound (PopforgeLibrary). Who said there were no more undiscovered frontiers in Flash? If it was me, then I was wrong (thankfully). André also asks for our help in petitioning Adobe to add native audio support to Flash, so ‘Make some noise!’.

A while back I wrote about the potential of the Mozilla framework as a platform for RIA development. Today, I found the first of what promises to be an interesting series of articles from Ben Longoria over at InsideRIA. He mentions the (relatively) new offering from Mozilla Labs – Prism (formerly ‘WebRunner’) – which attracted so much attention a few months ago (currently over 200 comments and 500 track-backs). I am definitely curious to see how the Prism project is coming along and am looking forward to Ben’s next installment.

Well, it seems that the ‘end’ of 3Guppies is now a matter of public record:

3Guppies on the ropes, cuts staff
VantagePoint Venture Partners kills 3Guppies, a $20M investment
VCs Push 3Guppies Into The Deadpool
3Guppies Loses Funding, Cuts Staff

I mention it here because this (3Guppies.com) is where I’ve been hanging my hat for the last six months.

Too bad, really – good people – so much potential. I guess sometimes (talent && capital) !== $uccess;