OT: English it is

As you might have noticed, the recent post were given in English, and English alone.
Once upon a time I wrote in Hebrew (my native language) only, and then I decided to translate the posts and have them in Hebrew and  English, cause it might be of assistance to English readers as well, but bringing myself to write both in Hebrew and in English on the same post (cause I can't quite rely on Google's translate) was getting harder and harder. I had this wonderful idea to write about, but when thinking about having to double-write it made me go: "oh well, maybe later".
It came to the point where I've written about my lingual pondering but I've recently decided to go for English.
I love writing in Hebrew and I think I do express myself better in my mother's tongue, but since this is a technical blog, I truly believe it will achieve it's goal better if written in English.
Hope this goes well with you guys.
Have a good one.

Cheers.

Adobe's loves freedom of choice. do you?

You've probably read it already, but if you didn't then please do.
This letter from Adobe came as a response to Steve Jobs letter about Flash and Adobe (if you haven't read it, then look it up yourselves :)).
I've decided to put it on my blog to get the idea through. Adobe's has always been a creator of tools for enabling one's inspirations. It's like getting a box of Lego where you can build whatever comes to mind using the building blocks handed to you. I don't think that Adobe thought for a second that Flash is going to replace HTML, I don't think they even directed it in that way. Even as you read, Adobe's evangelists are still giving presentations and demos on Mac machines…
Apple might be a great force in technology, but when you take this power and use it to forcibly lead users like cattle towards your technology, your simply cutting the branch you're sitting on, not to mention disrespect your customers - that means, you guys...
Think about it.

Oh boy - JavaScript and Flash really ARE on the same thread

Yeah, I know… this is something trivial that everyone knows, right? but I had to check it out.
The question I was presented with was: If I call a JavaScript function from Flash, will Flash UI keep on rendering or wait for a "response" from JS to continue?
The answer, as sad as it may be, is YES, it will stop rendering.

Here, check out the code below. It's a little test I did, where I have a button to launch an Alert from JS. I've also added a progress bar with it's indeterminate property set to "true" in order to see clearly if it stops, and there I have it. Once the Alert is up, the progress bar stops from rendering.
Hmmm… I don't like this. I don't like this at all.

Here is the Flex Application code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
layout="vertical">

<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
private function onClick(event:MouseEvent):void {
if (ExternalInterface.available) {
ExternalInterface.call("showAlert");
}
}
]]>
</mx:Script>

<mx:Button
label="Show JS Alert"
click="onClick(event)"/>

<mx:ProgressBar indeterminate="true"/>
</mx:Application>

And here is what I've added to the HTML template:

function showAlert() {
alert("Flash UI stops from rendering!");
}

Those who don't know their history are bound to repeat it

It's no secret - I don't like what Steve Jobs is doing with this whole Flash on Apple mobiles, and to be honest, I don't like the guy at all. He always appeared to me so full of himself.  As a matter of a fact, I don't like anyone who impose their power upon others just because they can.  Jobs, for one who stood up against Microsoft when it used it's power to set standards in the computing market, is now appearing to do exactly the same.
As the articles pile up about Apple and Adobe, I found myself wondering into the past of Apple, and more precisely into the past of Mr. Jobs. I found the following YouTube short documentary, that I urge you to watch. But if you don't have the time to spare check out below to see what I see and gather from it:



1977 (1:50 in the movie) - The apple II computers are a huge success for Apple. 2 million units sold (back then it's an amazing figure) and it became the standard for computers around the world. Kind of like the iPhone, right? Yeah… I would say.

1981 (2:35 in the movie) - IBM enters the market, and present a competition for Apple and Jobs. Kind of like Google Android and Nexus One?

Later Jobs is putting his trust in Graphic User Interface. A new and innovative feature that was sure to change the way people are interacting with computers - Kind of like the touch screen interface, no?

(3:35 in the movie)  - Job's picks Pepsi's  executive John Scully to lead the Apple business.

1984 (4:00 in the movie) - Apple Macintosh is released. Affordable, but more expensive than the IBM's. customers loved the interface but the availability of software on the new platform was a critical issue. Many software companies preferred writing for IBM's - Kind of like preventing Adobe's Flash on iPhone and iPad and by that preventing a lot of applications from these platforms users, I would say. Could people prefer Google's and other vendors that do support Flash?

1985 (4:40 in the movie)  - Apples sales decline, due to lack of software availability on it. Hmm… interesting.

(4:58 in the movie)  - The market started to realize that maybe the Apple computer were more attractive than the IBM's, but the IBM computers support the things the market wanted to do - Need I say more?

(5:35 in the movie)  - Jobs blames John Scully for Apple failure. Sells all his shares and leaves the company - Sounds a bit childish to me, but hey… that's the guy.

Can history repeat itself? I will let you decide...
Cheers.