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Hi guys.

All complaining and whining of that guy aside, I would like to mention that people who develop Blackberry Tablet OS apps right now that get accepted into the Blackberry app world (app store) by March 15 will receive *FREE* Blackberry Playbook tablets.

Looks like dev license fees will be a little hefty after this initial "seed" period, so take advantage now and sign up now for the developer program even if you don't plan to dev in the short term just to take advantage of the free license you'll get now.

For those who don't want to gamble it all on Blackberry Tablet with your time and money, Adobe AIR is an excellent solution as AIR apps are qualified for the ongoing FREE BLACKBERRY PLAYBOOK FOR EACH ACCEPTED APP developer promo ongoing 'til March 15.

AIR runs on Windows, OSX, Linux, Android 2.2+, Blackberry Tablet OS and as Apple iOS native apps (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch via the Adobe iOS Packager) so your app will have a lot of bases covered. AIR is pretty nice too because Actionscript 3 syntax/structure is pretty much Java now and easy to pick up, and you can also create AIR apps using the free open source Flex SDK, which is pretty much like the JDK except you output .SWF or AIR apps with it. Here's a free PDF ebook from O'Reilly on getting started with Flex.

Here's some stuff to get you started on AIR/Blackberry Tab: 1, 2, 3.

From what I've heard, for each app you make that is accepted in the Blackberry App world, you will receive 1 free Blackberry Tab via a redeemable coupon at Amazon.com and all you will have to pay for is shipping. Hey, free blackberry tablet is free blackberry tablet right? Take advantage now! Cheerios and hope to have helped! :)

The U.S. Department of Defense uses Flash/Flex as solutions for a number of their coordination tools, especially for mapping and data visualization.

Not kidding. Looks like a simplified real deal command-and-conquer RTS app.

Flash is pretty much the go to guy for easy-to-build rich GUIs, which even AAA game titles (Like Starcraft II, Streetfighter IV, etc) use Flash for their GUIs via Scaleform technology.

Flash can't handle scroll wheels yet. how long do you think it will take them to get touch screen support?

About 18 months ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TouchEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/GestureEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/AccelerometerEvent.html

And about 8 years ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/MouseEvent.html#MOUSE_WHEEL

Flash can't handle scroll wheels yet. how long do you think it will take them to get touch screen support?

About 18 months ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TouchEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/GestureEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/AccelerometerEvent.html

And about 8 years ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/MouseEvent.html#MOUSE_WHEEL

Flash can't handle scroll wheels yet. how long do you think it will take them to get touch screen support?

About 18 months ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TouchEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/GestureEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/AccelerometerEvent.html

And about 8 years ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/MouseEvent.html#MOUSE_WHEEL

Flash can't handle scroll wheels yet. how long do you think it will take them to get touch screen support?

About 18 months ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TouchEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/GestureEvent.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/AccelerometerEvent.html

And about 8 years ago:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/MouseEvent.html#MOUSE_WHEEL

The 10.2 update was a security fix for "all platforms". I don't know if that included Android. Do these mobile systems have better sandboxxing than desktops? http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb11-02.html
Then again, "all platforms" apparently does not include Mac OSX on PPC, which I read elsewhere is no longer supported AND not affected by the security problems.

Flash went to version 10.2 about a week ago on all the desktop platforms. Is it different on mobiles? Are they even updated? They aren't listed here:
http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

Can you name any files that might be more popular than those infringing the copyrights of the MPAA studios, the major porn studios, the big four record labels, or the major video game publishers?

Perhaps I can.

It really doesn't seem to be so hard.

I mean, really: Did you even stop to look around at the world before you wrote that?

Because, frankly, I think the concept that you're attempting to quantify is bullshit.

Really, I do.

Peace.

Can you name any files that might be more popular than those infringing the copyrights of the MPAA studios, the major porn studios, the big four record labels, or the major video game publishers?

Perhaps I can.

It really doesn't seem to be so hard.

I mean, really: Did you even stop to look around at the world before you wrote that?

Because, frankly, I think the concept that you're attempting to quantify is bullshit.

Really, I do.

Peace.

Passwords, maybe. Certificates, I doubt it.

I hope they kill the Adobe Download Extensions Manager Extension Plugin For Adobe Plugin Extensions next.

It might just be late, but I have no idea how you are reaching this conclusion. Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?

This, and you know why?

Adobe does not give a shit about H.264.

Adobe are in the business of selling authoring tools. You know. Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver. Those $500 programs that each creative desktop has? These are Adobe's cash cows.

If H.264 died tomorrow, Adobe would not care as long as they could keep shipping copies of Premiere that exported to WebM.

If Flash died tomorrow, Adobe would not care as long as they could keep shipping copies of Premiere that exported to WebM.

Adobe keeps Flash going for the simple reason that they sell Flash authoring tools. If Flash died and was replaced by HTML5, well... that's why Adobe has talked openly about making their authoring tools target HTML5. Also see http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/10/adobe-demos-flash-to-html5-conversion-tool.html

FWIW, there have also been huge security holes in the dominant PDF reader, too -- some quite recently.

You've got a bunch of things wrong there.

First of all, it was announced by Microsoft a while ago that IE9 will natively support WebM if the codec is installed in the OS. So this isn't a new development on Google's side - at least on IE side, it looks like this was planned in advance, and all the necessary hooks are there. It's not going to be a hack like Chrome Frame.

Regarding Flash, Adobe has also announced that it will support WebM.

What does Alchemy include?

The Alchemy tool chain includes a set of tools for building, testing and debugging C/C++ projects, example projects and documentation. It is based largely on the LLVM compiler project.

What is LLVM?

LLVM is a set of tools for creating and manipulating "low level virtual machine" bytecode. LLVM includes gcc/g++ based front-ends for converting arbitrary C and C++ code to LLVM bytecode. (http://llvm.org)

The official Flash compiler (known as the Flex SDK), written by Adobe, is free, open source, and you can even download nightly updates to the compiler from their SVN repository.

It's crossplatform, you can compile under anything that runs Java pretty much.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

> Speaking of H.264, I've got an H.264 decoder in hardware, in my fucking video card. Where is that feature in Flash?

> Standard as of Flash 10 for Windows, and Flash 10.1 for Mac OS X.

The current version of Flash crashes for me when I play video. Search the adobe forums and you will see hunderds of posts "flash crashing browser". It's been like this ever since version 10.
The only solution is to disable hardware acceleration: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2922923

Yes, note that firefox doen't ship H.264 either. In Europe, Firefox + Chrome share is 52.69%, IE 37.52%.

Worldwide Ubiquity of Adobe Flash Player by Version - December 2010

Europe

v9 and below 99.7%
v10 99.5%
v10.1 86.2% [up 10% from September]

The other regional - and global - numbers are - for all practical purposes - the same.

The fundamental problem is that the independent - proprietary - developer like Adobe doesn't have to wait for the global standards committee to get its act together.

It doesn't have to give way to anyone's notion of ideological purity or political correctness.

Flash Player Version Penetration

Isn't Flash an open standard?

http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf

It drives me nuts that adobe has such a high penetration in the ebook DRM market because they don't have tools for most platforms. AFAIK no official readers exist for any platform beyond Windows or Mac, which is great (sarcasm) given how many portable platforms exist nowadays (Symbian, BlackBerry, Android, iOS)

When I go to this URL, it automatically recognizes that I'm running linux, and it offers me the linux version of Adobe Reader to download.

Photoshop's "lite edition" still has an MSRP of $99.99... Amazon sells it for $70 (not counting the $20 MIR ending today).

4 12 ms 10 ms 10 ms mrfddsrj02gex070002.rd.dc.cox.net [68.100.0.145]
5 17 ms 14 ms 12 ms ashbbprj01-ae0.0.rd.as.cox.net [68.1.0.220]
6 12 ms 15 ms 12 ms 72.215.224.16

Firefox told me this would take 3 Minutes and 35 Seconds.

Then, I set my DNS to the 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 addresses and tried it again. This time I was sent to 72.246.30.19 with this partial tracert:

4 11 ms 12 ms 14 ms mrfddsrj02gex070002.rd.dc.cox.net [68.100.0.145]
5 13 ms 11 ms 13 ms ashbbprj01-ae0.0.rd.as.cox.net [68.1.0.220]
6 17 ms 17 ms 13 ms ge13-1.br01.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.44.125]
7 21 ms 18 ms 12 ms akamai.ge13-4.br02.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.218.94.142]
8 17 ms 18 ms 13 ms a72-246-30-19.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com [72.246.30.19]

Surprisingly, this second server that I was directed to using Google DNS only took 10 seconds to download the same file. I did it a second time and it took 30 seconds.

Now after restoring my default DNS resolution that URL continually directs me to 72.215.224.40 and the download is as speedy as the Google DNS. If I switch back to Google DNS it now continually directs me to 72.246.30.32 so you can see that there's some load balancing going here that apparently can be divvied up by geographic location for some of their customers. Apparently Apple needs to investigate the same solution that Adobe is using from Akamai. Which doesn't consider everything from Google DNS being fulfilled from a west coast replication server?

Except for the fact that the student editions licensing restrictions stating you are not to use it for commercial

You are entirely incorrect. Read this FAQ specifically:

Can I use my Adobe Student and Teacher Edition software for commercial use? Yes. You may purchase a Student and Teacher Edition for personal as well as commercial use.

surely they'd allow users of other operating systems to create apps for iOS?

They do. You can generate iPhone apps from Flash. That tool can be run on Mac or Windows.

Now what you are suggesting is Apple is beholden to make the development tools THEY write for Windows. Why should that be the case? Microsoft doesn't produce Visual Studio for the Mac!

Here's proof. CPU usage reduction up to tenfold

First you have to install Adobe Digital Editions for Windows (WINE should work) or OSX and start it at least once. Then you find (Google) a Python script called "ineptkey" (there is a Windows version and a Mac version) and "ineptepub". Run ineptkey and it will create a file called adeptkey.der with the decryption key used by your Digital Editions installation. Add DRM:ed epub to your Digital Editions library, find the file it creates in your home directory (on OSX it's $HOME/Documents/Digital Editions/) and run the ineptepub script on it. Voila, a DRM-free version that can be converted to mobi using Calibre.

See if you are prompted for this.

I just got a box with a small icon in the top corner. No PDF there. This is with IE8 on XP (without antivirus).

Hang on, I will try it in my trusted sites zone. Again, no. Different icon this time - was the red X one. Wait, I will have a look at Tools->Manage Addons. Ah yes, some clever bunny has disabled anything from Adobe. It is amazing how much more secure ANY operating system is once you get rid of software from that company.

Obviously I have fiddled with my system. An easier way to do it would be to use an alternative PDF viewer that doesn't want to be one with the web browser. It is a multitasking, windowing environment - I can handle a PDF popping up in another window rather than overwriting my current web page.

Still, if you are not comfortable changing the browser settings, then AV software is the way to go.

See if you are prompted for this.

Not a virus, just a PDF displayed using the HTML Embed tag. But it shows you just need to visit a page. As I said.

paragraphs are not preserved.

Yes, if you want you can preserve those and much more. See for yourself, there are standard tags to describe most of the document structure.

Adobe demands to install an extension just to let you download Flash, because downloading normally is out of the question.

http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_ax.exe
Try to avoid installing Adobe download manager harder.

Adobe demands to install an extension just to let you download Flash, because downloading normally is out of the question.

http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player.exe
http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_ax.exe
Try to avoid installing Adobe download manager harder.

Hint: ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/

Adobe Air -
Easy UI interaction framework, very powerful drawing APIs, runs on windows/linux/mac/android.

http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

Latest version lets you call native apps on windows/linux/mac.

Not according to this blog:

http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2010/07/introducing-adobe-reader-protected-mode.html

The initial release of Adobe Reader Protected Mode will be the first phase in the implementation of the sandboxing technology. This first release will sandbox all “write” calls on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2003. This will mitigate the risk of exploits seeking to install malware on the user’s computer or otherwise change the computer’s file system or registry. In future releases of Adobe Reader, we plan to extend the sandbox to include read-only activities to protect against attackers seeking to read sensitive information on the user’s computer.

Or from here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

This looks pretty much like the version you can download straight from the Adobe FTP server (yeah, they still have one):

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/

yes, and the 3rd directory down in this link sums it up pretty well

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/

Index of /pub/adobe/acrobat/
Name Size Date Modified
[parent directory]
all/ 8/26/08 1:00:00 AM
js/ 1/25/07 12:00:00 AM
junk1/ 2/12/04 12:00:00 AM
mac/ 3/10/09 1:00:00 AM
misc/ 5/31/01 1:00:00 AM
unix/ 1/20/00 12:00:00 AM
win/ 8/6/08 1:00:00 AM

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/10.x/10.0.0/

A few language options available, and EXE or MSI format.

Though it's not linked anywhere, cut-down installs of Adobe Reader can always be obtained from http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/enterprise/

Rubbish. Flash with H.264 is fucking fantastic.

Bullshit flash has severe overhead it can't get around by default. Playing videos in a regular program is far more efficient.

I'm pretty sure I never said it was as efficient as a native player. In fact, I outlined an example to the contrary in the part of my post that you conveniently omitted.

As for h264 itself, most of the animosity to it would be gone the moment software patents are deemed invalid in the US (that whole, you shouldn't be able to patent math business).

True, but the patents are sanely licensed in this case, so it's not an actual problem, just a theoretical one. Pretty much all animosity towards H.264 is ideologically based, and not based on how things actually are.

PDF is fully documented and has been for over a decade. It uses PostScript as its basis, then embeds the fonts and graphics into the file and tacks on data for a scripting engine. You don't even have to pay Adobe for the documentation. The specs are available for free on their web site. Certain versions of PDF are even ISO standard, although Adobe does have extensions to those since they keep updating the format faster than the extensions are put through ISO committees.

GIYF, but I'll save you the trouble.

Rubbish. Flash with H.264 is fucking fantastic.

Bullshit flash has severe overhead it can't get around by default. Playing videos in a regular program is far more efficient.

As for h264 itself, most of the animosity to it would be gone the moment software patents are deemed invalid in the US (that whole, you shouldn't be able to patent math business).

Try it here or here.

But I believe it uses actionscript.

Try it here or here.

But I believe it uses actionscript.

Alternatively, just uninstall Flash. You really don't need it for most of the web these days. (On OSX, it lives in /Library/Internet Plug-ins; you'll want to remove Flash Player.plugin, flashplayer.xpt, and the Shockwave file, I don't remember the name.)

Here are the official instructions from Adobe, which include a little uninstall utility: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/865/cpsid_86551.html#prob1=uninst,os=m10.6

OK after reading these pages...
http://www.nvidia.com/object/gpus_supporting_adobeflash.html
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/

it seems Flash supports PureVideo VP2 onwards, and UVD2 onwards for ATI. Isn't as good as the desktop is but MUCH better than 4 lousy GPUs.

I still have my reservations about Adobe's hardware decoder though (it doesn't compare up to the other h/w decoders).

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb10-26.html

However, you can run Flash on the iPhone with the Air packager using any Flash project written with Action Script 3.0:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/packagerforiphone/

It's not technically Flash. All the packager does is convert your AS3 code (It doesn't need to be AIR, it could be Flex or normal ActionScript) to byte code that makes it an iOS application. This is a similiar thing that happens when you create an application through Xcode. It's not like running an AIR application on Android, because that is actually the Flash runtime. I'd say its as Flash as this post about HTML converted code is Flash.

Flash apps are ok, Flash video in a browser plug-in is the only thing Apple won't allow. I have several Flash apps that I've developed and sold to customers. We used Air packager to turn our existing training content into an app that you can run on the iPad. (The design is too big to run on a phone, but we're reworking that now).

http://labs.adobe.com/technologie/packagerforiphone/