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But then, you already betrayed your cluelessness when you revealed that you put Flash on the Web.

Yeah! Damn their highly-adopted prescient, open security model and their 99% global penetration! Get off my lawn!

But then, you already betrayed your cluelessness when you revealed that you put Flash on the Web.

Yeah! Damn their highly-adopted prescient, open security model and their 99% global penetration! Get off my lawn!

How many people NEED what's in CS4 that isn't in CS3? Because CS3 works under Wine.

If you have a new camera and you're shooting raw, you might have problems since the final update for CS3 was 4.6 back on 10/10/2008.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=106&platform=Windows

And how well (if at all) do the various CS3 plugins work under Wine?

Just so you know, the Clipboard.getData() points to the AIR documentation which is a very different beast when compared to the Flash browser plugin. Also flash apps in a web page are subject to cross domain security policies (see: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_9_security.pdf ), the added benefit is that the target domain is able to control who's allowed to make cross domain calls and who's not (by default no one is allowed, much like in a browser).

I won't even bother getting into details, but flash can't get the clipboard contents, only set it

Clipboard.getData().

much like all other browsers

Only IE, actually.

Don't get me started on your XMLHttpRequest argument...

Flash allows you to request content from sites that would be blocked by XMLHttpRequest. Can you refuse that statement or not?

I bet if it was made by Linus/RMS/Jobs, the same crowd would have worshiped it...

You inadvertently make a good point. If Linus or RMS had developed flash, its source would have been open sourced, and by now, its capabilities would have been integrated into the browser. We wouldn't talk about what "Flash" can do as distinct from something else, but simply about the abilities of browsers.

That's what the rich media part of HTML5 is all about: doing what Flash can do in a browser.

Can you imagine going to a web site from a corporate locked down machine and attempting to install some untrusted codec?

As opposed to Flash, which is pretty much the ultimate untrusted codec? It's a huge binary blob that has had numerous security problems, and which has a huge attack surface. Even ignoring declared vulnerabilities, Flash allows web pages to do things like access the clipboard and bypass XMLHttpRequest same-origin restrictions. In short, installing flash makes a web browser demonstrably less secure.

It's remarkable, then, that an administrator would be comfortable installing this Trojan octopus of a plugin while ignoring a far simpler open source video codec that he can verify and compile himself.

Really, it just shows that people will trust the familiar without seriously questioning it, at least until a crisis shows up.

I'm definitely not an authority on either Linux or Windows audio, but I see something wrong with this statement:

Graphs like these are very misleading. OpenAL, SDL, libao, GStreamer, NAS, Allegro, and more all exist on Windows too. I don't see anyone complaining there.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/linuxaudio.png
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vLES3KKBdaM/Sjsptq1kkCI/AAAAAAAAAGU/yITp1qKuHOU/s1600-h/windowsaudio.png

Looking at both graphs, there's a striking difference: I don't see any loops in the Windows one (though, not being complete, there could be some). I don't see any major problems with library diversity, but the fact that there is no apparent hierarchy does confuse me.

FDT ? - http://fdt.powerflasher.com/
Flex ( now Flash ) Builder - http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/

They both include all the features you requested, debuggers, svn integration ... I do a lot of commercial AS3, and haven't opened the Flash IDE for a good while.

HTHs

Google "Macintosh Flash Performance", or just view this thread on Adobe's web site: Flash Player: Poor performance on Mac OS X: "The bug in our internal review is titled: 'Mac OS video decoding is ~5 times more CPU intensive than Windows' ".

As an aside: Does anyone remember how they pushed SVG before they bought out Macromedia? They even made a decent player, which you can still get here. Notice the first line on the page: "Please note that Adobe has announced that it will discontinue support for Adobe SVG Viewer on January 1, 2009."... Who needs SVG after you own Flash?

Screw Flash. Screw Acrobat. Screw Silverlight. On the web, the most puritan Free Software advocates are right: If it's proprietary, don't download. Don't install. You've just giving them the power to take away your choices.

Microsoft wins market share, not by innovating, but by making a product, and quickly iterating up-to and past the leader.

Adobe has more baggage to deal with (e.g., http://blogs.adobe.com/rgalvan/2009/06/feature_feedback.html ) which hurts the speed they can push ahead with new features. I've tried Silverlight 1 and 2; both show promise but neither seemed as mature as Flash CS3. Now CS4 is out as-is Silverlight 3. Silverlight 3 compared to 2 offers many times newer features than what Flash CS4 offered over CS3.

For example, I'd love an integrated code editor in Flash with decent editing, syntax highlighting, and intellisense capabilities; I've been waiting for this since MX2004. Silverlight 3 now has a built-in code editor, I wonder how well it stacks up to what Adobe offers.

Overall I'm glad Silverlight exists as it will push Adobe to keep making Flash a better technology, but historically Microsoft has come out on top. It took Microsoft 6 years from IE1.0 to make this happen in the browser marked ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers ) With 3D it took Microsoft until 6 years, from DirectX 1.0 to DirectX 8.1, to overtake OpenGL in the AAA PC gaming market.

Unless there is a shake-up in Microsoft I predict it will happen with this RIA tech too.

Adobe Flash is not only an establishment, it's also as open as it gets. Not open source, but open and free documentation.

The Flash player is a .swf player. The streaming protocol RTMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol) and the Sorenson codec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorenson_codec) are missing from the spec, but Gnash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash) is clean room reverse enginering this, making that open too.

Here you have the documentation: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

Fwiw, Adobe already /has/ open-sourced Flex, the Flash framework that really makes Flash useful for developing RIAs (they haven't open-sourced their compiler, I don't believe, but all of the Flex ActionScript is available). I'm a Flash/Flex developer, and at least a few times a week I grep through their source code to figure out how to do something, or how to change something about a built-in component, etc. Adobe has also released a specification for their swf file format, available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/.

In some important senses, "to Photoshop" implies using a broader set of capabilities and a different context than "to retouch" since Photoshop allows the user to create, illustrate and transform images in ways not possible with an airbrush and a darkroom. "*To Adobe" would not have worked well in this case since Adobe is already known to be a building material/technique unrelated to images. "*To Gimp" wouldn't work in this case since it already means "to lose physical or mental capability or functionality" via (a backformation of?) the noun "gimp" which is a pejorative for "one with a disability". "*To Gimp" in the context of the software application and images could then be easily taken to mean "to break or harm the image using the Gimp software".

Adobe rants about use of "Photoshop" as a verb and as a noun here: http://www.adobe.com/misc/trade.html

The transition from brand or product name to a verb seems weird because despite all of our advances in technology, it's still rare to develop new tools that provide fundamental new kinds of capabilities. "To laser", though not a trademark, has followed a similar path to "to Photoshop" in that the name of the tool becomes a verb for the application of the tool, regardless of the specific desired outcome or context (compare: "to hammer", "to pen", and "to root").

"To Google" is in the same area (starting as a brand for a single product, but grew to include related and unrelated products) in that we've had the verb "to search" for a long time, but not a verb for "to search on the Internet". Even though there are many search engines, "to Google" has a clear meaning about any of them since searching the web is qualitatively the same action on any search engine for most users and purposes. Near "to Google", the verb "to Fusker" has appeared in some circles to mean specifically "to search the web for images", via a perl script and (now defunct) website of the same name.

Prior to Google, "to gopher" had a similar meaning, roughly "to search for on-line content via the Gopher protocol". That verb sounded like "to go for" which resonated in context. It's unclear if "*to archie" (to search FTP archives using the Archie tool), "*to Jughead" (to Gopher via the Jughead tool), or "*to Veronica" (to Gpher via the Veronica tool) ever gained wide acceptance.

In other areas of the Internet, we have other formations such as "to IM" (or "to instant messenge" from "instant messenger") which seems to be being displaced by "to MSN", "to Digg", "to Facebook" etc. (although strangely not "*to MySpace" or "*to Friendster") which all mean to employ those websites/services for their intended functionality. I've also heard the imperative "*MSN me on Facebook!" which semantically distinguishes the applied roles and functions of those services.

Yes, I'm sure that Adobe will have no problem with him using their library in his program that he gives out to all his friends and clients.

The Flash player? Go right ahead: "Adobe provides a free license to allow you to redistribute Adobe Flash Player or Adobe Shockwave Player on your company's intranet, or with your software product or service." (here)

Ditto the XAML solution: the render is included in .NET 3.

The pragmatic reality, to borrow your phrase, is that more people have a Flash player installed than an SVG renderer.

I'm not the same AC as above, but I have a different case where Adobe has supplied the same "fix": http://www.adobe.com/go/kb403696 This is for RoboHelp X5, developed by eHelp which was bought by Macromedia shortly before release, so the product was rebranded and made to use Macromedia's activation server. MM never developed any more versions of RoboHelp, but Adobe bought them a couple years later and has since put out some newer versions. They kept MM's activation server running for a while, but at some point something happened and activation broke, permanently, for everybody. (Still relevant for reinstalls and the like, of course, and especially important considering that X5 was the latest version for about 3 years, so by the time Adobe started development, nearly all RoboHelp users were using this version.) Their solution: run without activation.

Flash has been on Linux for ages now.

On ARM, or only on x86?

Both
On ARM (for Flash 9 at least) and here for x86/x86-64 hardware.

And as another poster said, this article is about Windows 7 which doesn't work on ARM yet.

There is a DataGrid component in the free Flex SDK. The AdvancedDataGrid is part of the data visualization package that comes with Flex Builder Professional. In general, the Flex community thinks the AdvancedDataGrid is garbage. Slow, messy, and written by engineers that aren't part of the main Flex team who don't follow the official best practices. There are functions in its classes that are hundreds of lines long. I'm not kidding. I know guys who have written their own implementation of the features in AdvancedDataGrid because it sucked so bad. Thankfully, most use-cases for a DataGrid will be handled just fine by the regular DataGrid in Flex.

There is a DataGrid component in the free Flex SDK. The AdvancedDataGrid is part of the data visualization package that comes with Flex Builder Professional. In general, the Flex community thinks the AdvancedDataGrid is garbage. Slow, messy, and written by engineers that aren't part of the main Flex team who don't follow the official best practices. There are functions in its classes that are hundreds of lines long. I'm not kidding. I know guys who have written their own implementation of the features in AdvancedDataGrid because it sucked so bad. Thankfully, most use-cases for a DataGrid will be handled just fine by the regular DataGrid in Flex.

Update: Furthering Adobe's commitment to the Linux community and as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, an alpha refresh of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on 2/24/09 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation. Learn more by reading the 64-bit Flash Player 10 FAQ.

Falcon

Update: Furthering Adobe's commitment to the Linux community and as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, an alpha refresh of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on 2/24/09 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation. Learn more by reading the 64-bit Flash Player 10 FAQ.

Falcon

If your Flash file works in IE, it works in FF, Opera, Safari, etc. It requires a plugin sure, but it's one that's almost universally adopted.

I don't know how many tymes I've come across a Flash movie, though a bunch, where it says I need to upgrade my Flasher player to at least v9, before the movie will play. Using Adobe's Flash version tester it says I have 9,0,151,0 installed.

Falcon

A well functioning company who devote all of their efforts to multimedia and optimization of multimedia routines will always outperform something which has to be implemented by every browser individually. This is particularly true given that no browser team will have adobes resources, know-how and clout gained through producing editing software, effects software, audio software, image software etc. This will only end once the multimedia demand ceiling is hit like it was with the audio playback industry where the majority have been happy to settle for mp3s because they can barely tell the difference in effective quality given anything better. So I don't think we're there yet and html video will not do all the cool OSX style stuff that flash is starting to do: (top of the page) http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/features/ or interactive 3d video (yeh really) http://demos.immersivemedia.com/index.php?clip=WW1 For quite some time to come. Not to mention interactive webcam videos, live video compositing and transforming, dynamic compiled filters etc. I am, however, glad that interactivity through html and flash is basically javascript adressing different DOMS.

Flex, along with the SWF standard /ARE/ opensourced. http://opensource.adobe.com./ JavaFX and Silverlight are not. Sorry.

Not only does it work on 64-bit Vista, but it actually has native 64-bit Linux support too! Get with the times, troll.

Yeah, but can it do this?

http://www.nextcdn.com/Silverlight.htm

HTML5 is very much a media techology built like a web browser. But while the presentation layer is important, it only part of what makes a good media experience.

Smooth Streaming is dynamically and seamlessly between multiple bitrates based on real-time measurements of bandwidth, availble CPU, and window size. And it requires a decoder architecture like MediaStreamSource where demuxing happens in the sandbox, with decoders that can take appended sequences of raw audio and video samples.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.mediastreamsource_members(VS.95).aspx
http://alexzambelli.com/blog/2009/02/10/smooth-streaming-architecture/

Flash has something somewhat similar with Dynamic Streaming.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/dynstream_advanced_pt1_04.html

The key thing about a runtime like Silverlight or Flash is that the bytecode engine, decoders, and rendering layer are tightly coupled, and so can make assumptions about how long it takes a video sample to get from networking stack to demuxer to decoder to rendering engine to screen. It's complex stuff, and it's hard to see HTML5 specified tightly enough to make that kind of thing feasible.

For another extreme, there's the Raw AV pipeline: video and audio decoders running inside the managed code sandbox. Javascript is getting faster, sure, but it's a long way from being THAT fast.

Or to look at it another way, it'd be easier to support HTML5 in Silverlight than it would be to replace Silverlight with HTML5.

Are you kidding me? Here are a few "Video Players" and and "Webpages Menus"

http://www.fordvehicles.com/the2010mustang/
http://www.007thevideogame.com/
http://www.splashup.com/
http://kuler.adobe.com/

Notice I said, Can be added. The Wii does have Flash but not the latest version which does suck. Nintendo should update it.
From what I hear the Pre will have Flash,
But for Android.. http://gizmodo.com/5091778/flash-10-on-the-android-g1-its-getting-there
Flash on the iPhone.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/31/adobe_apple_working_together_on_flash_for_iphone.html
Flash for Windows Mobile http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/wm.html
Flash for the S60 http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/nokia_s60.html

Notice I said, Can be added. The Wii does have Flash but not the latest version which does suck. Nintendo should update it.
From what I hear the Pre will have Flash,
But for Android.. http://gizmodo.com/5091778/flash-10-on-the-android-g1-its-getting-there
Flash on the iPhone.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/31/adobe_apple_working_together_on_flash_for_iphone.html
Flash for Windows Mobile http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/wm.html
Flash for the S60 http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/nokia_s60.html

So we switched a whole project to Flex once. Yeah, Flex. Free right? Not if you want the datagrid!

Advanced DataGrid component -- The Advanced DataGrid is a new component that adds commonly requested features to the DataGrid such as support for hierarchical data, and basic pivot table functionality. Available only with Flex Builder Professional.

The free Flex framework framework does include a Datagrid, which is like an excel spreadsheet table.

  The Advanced Visualization and Charting package includes an Advanced DataGrid which, as best I understand, allows for grouping data in a hierarchy.

  Adobe's model appears to be focusing on the tools--where they make money--and hoping the community will provide more components.

Advanced DataGrid component -- The Advanced DataGrid is a new component that adds commonly requested features to the DataGrid such as support for hierarchical data, and basic pivot table functionality. Available only with Flex Builder Professional.

Need to fork over cash for that gem. Oh, you can drone on and on about "vendor lock in" and "hidden costs" with Flash. Don't matter. Customer is king.

My only hope is that HTML 5 presents a competitive datagrid with pivot table functionality. From their specs:

The datagrid element represents an interactive representation of tree, list, or tabular data.

HTML 5, I await you with open arms, hope and understanding. Improve the table element (if possible) and create a solid datagrid element. Deliver me from Flash.

First, you know in all of those products automatic updates can be turned off, right? You don't have to un-install them, the company is just trying to provide a service (and make sure they stay in your mind for such services).

Yeah, with registry hacks: Acrobat, or with this or that homegrown solution. There's no excuse for that-- Acrobat is now gone, and the alternative is quite a bit faster as well...

Second, Acrobat (reader), QT Player, RealAudio Player, Firefox, and Safari are already free, did you pay for them? If so, you got scammed son.

I didn't mean to imply they're not free-- but so are the alternatives so it's not like I'm saving money by using Acrobat Reader.

Third, you know browsers can handle all of those things but the editing, and ripping right? And I wouldn't be surprised if local versions of web services weren't made available at some point, browsers are very flexible and there are web based services for most all of these functions.

No, that's not correct. While there may be browser-based paint programs, show me the browser-based programs of the quality of Corel Painter, Z-Brush, Maya, Cubase, Pro-Tools, Sonar, Pinnacle Studio, Vegas Pro, Poser, etc. Given the speed of web-based tools of this nature, I'd have to say-- don't quit your day job.

Lastly, why would a BIOS browser OS preclude a monolithic OS as an alternate boot option?

Because it's cheaper not to include and have to support something I have no need for? If you're going to boot an alternative "monolithic" OS, exactly what was the point of a BIOS based browser again?

It must be time to go back and revisit why service-bureau computing waned in the face of the desktop machine-- people wanted more control over their data, people wanted more control over their computer performance, people wanted more control over their computer access, and people wanted more control over their privacy. "always-on" internet based computing requires a constant internet connection, a utility that does go down or get slow now and then, and doesn't do well in remote environments, including environments as remote as about 20 miles outside of town in rural areas.

However, I can't find any free software that can specifically work with epub.

There are at least two. Adobe Digital Editions which is reputed to be a pretty thorough implementation of the .epub standard by a lot of people who wrote .epub creation tutorials, though I haven't tried it myself. And FBReader which is an open source multi platform program that is well suited for portable devices like the Illiad, smartphones, Nokia Internet tablets (770, 800, 810 tc.), and android, but also runs in Windows, and Linux. Its implementation is not perfect, but the books look just fine and will pull the author & title information from the .epub for you so you don't have to do it manually when adding the book to your library.

Personally, I use FBReader on my N810. I have it configured to look roughly like this (red on black preserves night vision and doesn't leave nearly the afterimage that black on white or white on black does when reading in bed at night) though there's no toolbar in fullscreen mode. Here are some screenshots on other platforms.

The benefits are its an open standard and you can fairly easily create your own .epub books that follow the standard.

Go with a quality PC running Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas Pro. This will give you a lot more "bang for your buck" in a nice portable editing setup than a Mac running Final Cut Pro (particularly on a small documentary budget). Don't bother with Linux, it's video editing software is shit (sorry to be harsh, but it's true).

In their security alert, Adobe urges people to upgrade from Adobe Reader 9.1.0 to 9.1.1. If you install Reader from their main download site, they still give you 9.1.0. The 9.1.1 update is available only if you follow the links at the bottom of the security alert. Insecurity through obscurity!

I've never managed to get Word's autonumbering to work correctly in a continuously edited technical document despite many attempts to reset / modify the Heading X styles. The auto-formatting feature in MS Word is the worst culprit. This has always been MS Word's problem from the beginning (I'm currently using Office 2003 out of necessity).

I've never tried Office 2007, didn't want to invest any more energy on learning an incompatible interface on an application that does not deal well with technical documents.

LyX (LaTeX) is great for stuff like auto-numbering, but diagrams are a pain since there's no easy way to edit the diagram by double clicking on it, besides the lack of good diagramming tools that export to EPS format. Visio generates lousy EPS (deliberately?)

FrameMaker was the best of the lot. Unfortunately its market share and numerous bugs during the time Adobe bought it over meant that it's no longer a real contender for most people.

No 64 bit support.

FYI, the alpha/beta v10.0 of their flashplayer is 64bit now.

From the above link:

Update: Furthering Adobe's commitment to the Linux community and as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, an alpha refresh of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on 2/24/09 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation.

Note: I'm not an Adobe fanboi or anything, so I'm not saying it works well, just pointing out that they appear to be really trying to close the 64bit gap.

FWIW, it does seem to work for most of the things I've used it for, some videos from YouTube, for example, with sound, but I've also noticed it failing to work a couple of times on other things, so YMMV. It all depends on what you try to play with it.

Bloated? I don't think one should describe what Adobe has done to Acrobat Reader simply as "Bloat". I suggest redefining the term as a verb with a tip of the hat to the new masters, as in "you silly hack, you've adobed your software!"

After getting fed up with Reader in the wake of the Feb. 19th PDF remote exploit notice (http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html/) I decided to install FoxIt (I know, proprietary, not open source goodness)... But anyway, when I went to uninstall Adobe Reader, Windows claimed it to be taking up 221MB on my hard drive. 221 Megabytes! For a document reader!?

After installing FoxIt, Windows claims that it takes up only 7.15MB, which I corroborated by checking the size of the install directory. For the life of me, I can't figure out what exactly it is that Adobe Reader does that FoxIt doesn't. They're functionality identical so far as I can tell. So what in god's name is Adobe doing with that extra 200 megabytes of disk space?

The following is taken form Adobe's website. Adobe Systems Incorporated and ARM today announced a technology collaboration to optimise and enable Adobe® Flash® Player 10 and Adobe AIRâ for ARM Powered® devices
The joint technology optimisation is targeted for the ARMv6 and ARMv7architectures used in the ARM11â family and the Cortexâ-A series of processors and is expected to be available in the second half of 2009. announcement here

It is an open specification:

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/xml/index_arch.html

And yes it does provide a lot of things not available in the pdf spec - for example directly rendered forms (which require significantly less bandwidth).

I wish people would stop spreading fud about Acrobat/Reader. Having worked for Adobe (I no longer do sadly) on Acrobat specifically a few facts:

A) update manager only starts with the app - it doesn't run constantly and you can disable it and use the help > check for updates feature - you can even deploy it to a million machines with this setting (thanks to its msi installer and customization wizard).

B) patches are released only once per quarter - I don't recall anytime (unless it was a security hotfix) that we released more than one patch per quarter.

C) Foxit is great - its the reason why Adobe made the PDF spec and ISO standard.

That said - it only impliments maybe a tenth (and I'm being really generous here) of what Reader/Acrobat can do. If you take reader and remove all the plugins from it its as small as foxit and starts just as fast and has as much functionality. There really are people in banking, finance, manufacturing, education, printing etc that rely on these features.

As some people have mentioned - it lacks a lot of features required in form support. I'd also add that it doesn't support postscript passthrough, or any number of a hundred different features required for pre-press work (color separation, color management, analysis or reporting).

I'd also add that foxit supports javascipt as well - which means eventually once it reaches Slashdot market dominance it will become a ripe target for hackers as well.

On security - as far back as Acrobat 4 it had security issues - no-one messed around with it because frankly it wasn't a big enough target. It wasn't until someone a while back (I think while Acrobat 7 was shipping) that someone exploited it and the blood was in the water. Once that happened every security researcher/hacker under the sun was working on it. Until it happens to your product you can sit there and say whatever you are doing is secure, but trust me its not. Once in the hands of people who really want to exploit it for real money want to - you essentially will play a cat and mouse game for the rest of the products lifecycle where sometimes you win and sometimes they win.

On launch performance - I'd actually bet money that Acrobat 9 Pro would launch faster than Foxit - yes seriously. It launches 10x faster than 8 did because it only loads libraries as it needs them (instead of doing like a 120+ loadlib calls on start). Essentially if you're just loading a pdf and looking at it - it doesn't need to load all the plugins for forms, annotations and 3d annotations etc.

Also for visual performance (and foxit definately doesn't have this) 8 and later can use a video card with pixel shader 3 hardware to accelerate the filling in and drawing of vectors to the point where you can do things like realtime zoom, rotations and scrolling on a pdf file - even complex ones.

For 64bit Flash, go to http://labs.adobe.com/ and download the Flash 10 64bit alpha. They haven't officially released it, but it works much better than the 32bit in ndiswrapper solution.

whats up with 64bit flash? it seams to work ok here (debian lenny), well other than being flash.

computers will always need security support, at some point people will care less about shinny and switch to Debian.

The 64-bit alpha version of Flash is out, and it's very stable. I can't remember having a Flash related crash since I installed it (it's the most stable version I've ever used!). http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

Here you have it in PDF, the full video specs, straifght from www.adobe.com; http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flv/pdf/video_file_format_spec_v9.pdf

Now that we got the obvious out of the way... GIVE MEH MAH EVOLVED TELEVIZIONS NOW! MOAR!!111

First, Adobe didn't add the ability for Flash in a browser to go fullscreen until version 9.0.28 of the player, which as released in Oct 2007 IIRC. And it had a number of restrictions due to security:

• To enable full-screen mode, developers must add a new and tag parameter, allowFullScreen, to their HTML. This parameter defaults to false, or not allowing full screen. To allow full-screen, developers must set allowFullScreen to true in their / tags.
• An overlay dialog box will appear when the movie enters full-screen mode, instructing the user how to exit and return to normal mode. The dialog box appears for a few seconds and then fades out.
• The ActionScript that initiates full-screen mode can be called only in response to a mouse click or keypress. If it is called in other situations, it will be ignored (in ActionScript 2.0) or throw an exception (in ActionScript 3.0).
• Users cannot enter text in text input fields while in full-screen mode. All keyboard input and key-related ActionScript is disabled while in full-screen mode, with the exception of the keyboard shortcuts that take the viewer out of full-screen mode.
• The user can disable full-screen mode for all Flash movies by adding a setting to the Flash Player configuration file mms.cfg. The file is described in the TechNote, IT Administration: Configuring Flash Player Auto-Update Notification. Add the line: FullScreenDisable=1 to the mms.cfg file to disable full-screen mode.

The only reason they added the escape for full screen, was because Flash allowed fullscreen content without a way of getting back to normal.

According to the above, I don't really believe this. Unless you're talking about the standalone player, in which I still don't believe it because I'm pretty sure alt-tab, etc. would still work.

All of these things were done to prevent flash apps in a browser from impersonating your operating system. I don't see what you would have had them done otherwise. And yes, the content has to have a button or key for going fullscreen. However, you can usually pretty easily avoid that by greasemonkeying it. I run lots of flash apps fullscreen that don't actually have a button for it in the flash app.

It's also not up to the flash app, but up to the containing HTML app and the flash configuration file. Both of these are a good thing if you were concerned about untrusted flash code doing naughty things.

As far as the volume control, I don't really see where the problem is. I personally hate every app having their own volume controls, with the addition of another volume knob on the speaker. Just too many sliders where some can be cranked up to max while others are very low, thus distorting everything. So inside your flash app, you might have separate volumes for sound effects, music and voice. Now you want ANOTHER volume knob added by flash so that you have to figure out which volume knob is turned all the way down, the app's voice knob, the flash master volume knob, the windows Wave volume knob, the Windows Master volume knob, or your speaker's physical volume knob. Too many knobs for me.

another proprietary piece of crap

Wake up, it's 2009 already. Adobe has published the SWF specification (version 10, no less) almost a year ago.

Adobe's press release here, BBC's article here

Reason #2 is that OS X is the only OS on which I can run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a Unix shell.

Photoshop, Dreamweaver and a Unix shell all seem available on Windows.

Reason #2 is that OS X is the only OS on which I can run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a Unix shell.

Photoshop, Dreamweaver and a Unix shell all seem available on Windows.

Yellowcbs is good, but that actually describes the service somewhat, which is a 2.0 no-no. Calling them RedSpring or BlueLamp would be better, or hell, just name it after a mountain in Scotland that half your userbase will mispronounce. I suppose you could go with yel.lowca.bz if you have to, but that's so yes.terd.ae.

Just remember, whatever you call it, it has to be in Beta and stay there, or else it won't be credible. Finished software is too edgy to be mainstream.