TL;DR? Jump to the direct impact on you.
It has been a crazy week. I have composed pieces of this in my head in spare moments, so hopefully it’s just a matter of getting them down and tying them together. Hopefully the days of rumination will have distilled out some of the prosthelytizing I will inevitably do.
So, assuming you haven’t already figured it out, what does [Adobe killing [mobile] Flash] mean for you and your Crackberry? I’m honestly not sure, but I have some thoughts:
Taking a step back, it is a tacit admission (murky marketing-speak notwithstanding) that Flash1, would take too much (additional) effort to shoehorn onto mobile platforms. And also that the few abortive forays into the mobile space have not really been viable. (Which is interesting given the PlayBook, which we’ll get to in a moment)
It is also an admission that everyone’s energy is better spent developing open-standards based web applications. This is something that many of us have been saying for a while, but only recently has it even partially viable2. And it is to Adobe’s immense credit that they’ve seen the handwriting on the wall and have taken the hard turn. So many companies who “own” a technology that defines, for better or worse, a space are more likely to bury their head in the sand and plow along insisting they’re still relevant. Right up until they fold.
But what does this mean to you, a Blackberry user? I don’t think it means much in the short term. It means you won’t see a Flash player on your device, but I don’t think that you have one now.
It also means that app developers can focus attention on building HTML 5-based applications/sites that degrade gracefully, yet consistently for less capable browsers (like, quite frankly, the BB browser), are much better adapted for accessibility (and by extension search engines and possibly the Semantic Web). And that browser developers can focus on delivering a consistent, standards-compliant experience (which RIM needs to do in a hurry, but more on that in a moment)
As for the longer term? That’s trickier, and a further twist was introduced within the last few days: See, RIM bet the farm on Flash with the PlayBook, and this announcement put them between a rock & a hard place. A few days afterward they announced that they were licensing the source from Adobe to continue updating it for the PlayBook.
In the long run this could be better for the PlayBook: they can customize it more for their particular hardware, and they don’t have to wait for Adobe to fix bugs.
But it is by no means a guaranteed win. And it definitely means that they’ll need more resources in the project (either people or time, and I know what I’d bet on), and the most likely source of those is the BB browser team, which will likely cause it to lag even further behind everyone else.
And none of this mentions the very (thoughtful) analysis in past months on the less-than-rosy outlook for RIM and the head-in-the-sand mentality of their co-CEOs. But I have babbled enough.
1 Flash, a technology designed for desktops (originally a stripped-down version of Shockwave for the web)
2 HTML5, while still very immature shows great, great promise. But I am not so idealistic (anymore) to believe that it will pan out exactly as we hope.
Folks! We’re meeting in Sausalito! It’s a perfect excuse to grab your bike and ride across the bridge!
For this ride there aren’t really any. The Change.org folks will be stopping just at the base of the bridge, before hitting downtown Sausalito. If anyone else is still considering this ride, it’s a very easy ride into downtown, and the ferry is a nice way home.
Deviations from these options are encouraged! Any questions? ASK!
]]>Setenv PGOPTIONS "-c bytea_output=escape" to the right portion of our Apache configuration was all it took.We are pleased to announce native Linux packages for RedHat / Fedora derived RPM distributions, including RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, and ScientificLinux.
And the note at the end
These packages are currently being maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Questions, comments, patches, and pull requests are always welcome.
I’m pleased to finally be able to announce this project. I’ve been noodling on it since October. I’m also looking forward to working with them in the future to keep the packages clean and up to date!
]]>My apologies for the short notice, I've been working on a project that uses Facebook Events (*cough*movingtarget/half-assedAPI*cough*) and absent-mindedly created an an event for this party instead of our usual Pingg invite, thus missing a bunch of people.
If you're available, we'd love to have you! If not, it's my fault. Come to the housewarming instead.
]]>
“Listen, kid. We’re all in this together.”
There are likely to be many on the side on which I’ve been standing who are looking to destroy those on the other side, as a manner of repudiating the thinking and damage done in the last eight years. I fully expected to be one.
This morning my realization that I wasn’t in that camp prompted me to remember a well-respected Republican admonishing:
“Why, madam, do I not destroy [my enemies] when I make them my friends?”
It’s going to take every one of us to roll up our sleeves, pull the wheel, and turn the Ship of State off the suicidal course on which it has been directed for the last 8 years.
Let it begin with me. Yes we can.
]]>
This afternoon I tendered my resignation. I leave behind a great group of people on the cusp of major to stratospheric success. It was a very hard decision, but my destiny lies elsewhere.
The top half of the page at left isn’t as true as it’s been in the past, making the decision all the more difficult. But the bottom half sings a profound truth.
I was not looking for a new gig. But a few kept landing in my lap that I couldn’t pass up. I’ve accepted the senior developer position at Emmet Labs, an early-stage social platform startup in San Francisco.
There are many reasons this excites me: learning a lot while working on interesting problems in a cool (metaphorical) space surrounded by fascinating (and occasionally famous) people in a dynamic and passion-driven environment. That’s where I thrive!
Obviously there are a lot of other, less exciting emotions tied to the coming and the going, but I feel the need to keep this entry short. Perhaps I’ll catalogue them in a future post.
]]>I’m putting together another all-abilities, all-ages, slow as molasses, stop & smell the roses bicycle ride over the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday, June 22.
Deviations from these options are highly encouraged! Any questions? ASK!
]]>I’m in Miami for the week, and I feel a bit vulnerable without having the ability to connect with folks, either at home, in the family, or people I want to see/meet here.
But beyond that, I don’t know what to do moving forward. Palm is dead as a platform. The rumored impending release of the 3G network iPhone would be absolutely perfect, except:
It’s that last one that is so problematic. I feel completely hypocritical even considering an iPhone. Yeah, sure, Android, um, see #2 above.
]]>