Adobe Flash and Apple iDevices

In http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ writes about the reasons Flash is not allowed on the iPhone and iPad. My 0.02 fiat money's worth is that I see Job's point about Flash not being touch sensitive and having been designed for last-generation devices, and Flash not being appropriate for apps.

I recall the evangelistic tone to the Human Interface guide of the first Macintoshes. The big deal was consistency and economy of motion. Apple has done a great job on the user interface of its devices since then. Now, think about Flash plug-ins in web browsers. When one comes upon a Flash element on a web site, there is no telling what the user interface might be. Consistency is not in Flash'es vocabulary.

Yes it's a pain to a web developer knowing that if I put Flash into a web site, mobile users will not be able to use it. On the other hand, I would rather see Apple in complete control of the stack of software yielding the user interface of my iDevices.

I watched the WallStreet Journal interview with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and sure he has the Flash ecosystem to defend. His retort about Mac OS should be fixed if Flash causes crashes was a cheap shot but it is somewhat revealing. Change your operating system and your user interface to accommodate my software. I side with Jobs and would rather use the new HTML5 standard on my web sites that would be viewable on iPhones and iPads.

Testing txting from cell phone to blog. Why I would want to blog from cell is good question

Ugly TypeFace Rending of FireFox on PCs

I recently came across http://browserlab.adobe.com/. I examined several of the sites I manage and to my chagrin, some functionality did not work on all browsers on the PC and Mac. One especially annoying discovery (which I suspected earlier) was that the same page would display ugly with Firefox on the PC, okay with Internet Explorer on the PC, and okay on Mac FireFox and Safari. How could that be?  A little sleuthing on the net revealed that there is a setting in the PC control panel for enabling ClearType. That resolves the problem. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306527. Do my clients and their users look at their web sites via PC Firefox and barf?

The more germane question is whether ClearType is automatically set in Vista or  Windows 7. It doesn't appear to be default in XP.

XML and PHP Simplified - XML,PHP and the Database

XML and PHP Simplified - XML,PHP and the Database

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Broadband over Power Line: Ready for Prime Time?

Broadband over Power Line: Ready for Prime Time?: "With a recent investment by Google and a new initiative announced by IBM, broadband-over-power-line technology has leapt back into the spotlight. Have companies finally found a way to profit from the promise of broadband in every home with an electrical outlet? "

Comparison of Unwanted Software Installed by P2P Programs

Benjamin Edelman, PhD candidate at Harvard, did a study of five P2P programs to characterize their license disclosures, the files they installed, the tracking objects installed and the ads launched as a result of using the software. The five programs: eDonkey, iMesh, Kazaa, LimeWire, and Morepheus. Can you imagine a 22K disclosure on 182 screens? I can't but that is what Kazaa has. Naive me was also shocked by the number of registry entries and the number of files installed. The study was noted in slashdot, and is worth reading.

AOL Instant Messenger Pop-Under Ad

Sneaky AOL! When I close the AIM window a pop-under ad for TravelZoo is shown. Can't figure out a way to stop it short of using a different instant messenger. It's especially bad to me because the ad that disturbs my tranquility is via Internet Explorer browser, and I am running FireFox. AIM version 5.9.3672. PestPatrol, Ad-Aware, Spybot.

The barrage of advertising we get in all mediums is insane.

HTTP P3P Header -- Apache Module mod_headers

One can install a P3P HTTP Header into an Apache webserver via a .htaccess file. Here is an example that shows the syntax of the .htaccess file:

Header append P3P 'CP="CAO DSP COR LAW CURa ADMa DEVa PSAa PSDa OUR DELa BUS IND PHY ONL UNI PUR COM NAV INT STA",policyref="/w3c/p3p.xml"'

Notice: capitalization of 'Header', policyref does not include the domain, and use of single quotes enclosing the P3P argument.

More information on the Apache http module at:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_headers.html.

FireFox 1.0 Browser is out

Yea! FireFox 1.0 came out today. Get yours now. I use FireFox for all my web browsing except the few sites that only work with Internet Explorer, and those I ignore unless they are financial sites that I need.

Adherence to P3P Protocol

Just how necessary or useful is adherence to P3P protocol. Just for the fun of it I checked msn.com, shopping.msn.com, yahoo.com, and cooking.com using the "integrated validation" link of "Checky" from FireFox browser. Not one link completely passed validation. The major problems seem to be with the content of the compact policy of the HTTP header. Interesting.