I was asked to answer a few questions from you all on the Design Tea podcast, right on the heels of Tim van Damme.
(pardon the random image from the movie)
You can watch the whole thing here. If you do have more questions feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks to Linebreak for having me.
I tend to be harsh on Flash a lot, and I dislike it as much as the next standards-advocating (and technologically savvy) Mac user. Since I like putting my money where my mouth is, I decided to try going into February and not use Flash even once during all of its 28 days, inspired by Michael Heilemann‘s initiative to do the same. He even logged his difficulties, which I haven’t and won’t be doing.
For me, the conclusion after February was clear. I missed out on a few things that annoyed me intensely. Most of the things I missed out on were videos on websites like TED and the New York Times. I had some catching up to do after February. With the help of ClicktoFlash and Youtube and Vimeo’s HTML5 players I was able to watch most of the video content out there, but there is still a lot that you can’t watch without that little plugin. I also ‘missed out’ on a truckload of so-called ‘rich advertisements’, which I absolutely adored.
But the problem of going through your digital life without Flash it’s not just videos on otherwise accessible websites. Try browsing for motion design agency showreels and websites for new games without Flash. Some industries have a vested interest in Flash because it is a mature platform for graphic websites, despite advances in HTML + CSS + Javascript. And I can imagine; the Flash-less approach doesn’t only break down in some browsers, it’s simply not mature yet. Take a look at the current Macheist page. At the time of this writing, it is using 65 to 70 percent of the processing power in my early 2008 Mac Pro, equipped with eight Xeon cores.
Worse still, people hail these Flash-free websites as progress and the road to the future. With terrible performance and compatibility like that, I prefer Flash, despite its drawbacks and proprietary nature. Actually using these technologies and advacing the state of the art is great, but I hope it doens’t put these upcoming standards in a bad light. It’s worth noting, however, that a lot of these techniques are in their infancy.
I’ll be happy with a more efficient and well-performing Flash plugin for Mac, but what I want above everything is a access to the of data that is used by web plugins. It’d be great if I would’ve been able to at least view the motion agencies’ showreels (which are all in Quicktime) and read a bit about games or view some screenshots without requiring a plugin. If I do want to opt into the so-called ‘rich’ web experience, I’ll use Flash, Silverlight, or Web Plugin #4512 to render blinking text and videos projected onto cubes which fall down the screen and bounce around using realistic physics.
Microsoft Labs is doing great things with Silverlight that aren’t possible with Javascript and modern standard-based technologies (yet?), like Pivot, which was demonstrated at TED this year (Flash video – sigh). Pivot’s data, however, for at least half of the video, is the actual web, built on standards and accessible to any technology. This way, if another superior technology comes by or a plugin is no longer supported, anyone can harness the power of the existing data to replicate or even improve on the functionality that we’re so accustomed to. I like that.
There is nobody stopping you from making an iPad or iPhone application using Core Animation which browses Wikipedia like Pivot does – try doing that with all the video that is on the internet.
In conclusion, I’m actually happy to use Flash again to get at all the content I want. I’m equally happy to have missed out on the drawbacks of Flash. While before February I was convinced Flash had no place in the world, I am now a bit more relaxed about it. Flash has its place – but we shouldn’t lose track of the real goal: making the data we want to interface with accessible regardless of the technology I have on my computer, be it a phone, tablet, or PC.
By no means a replacement of the Cocoia Exploded Settings tee, but I wanted to wear this and I was told others enjoyed it as well. Represent the new era of online video – which plays fullscreen without crashing your Mac, hopefully.
This shirt will be available soon for a limited time. Drop a comment if you’d also like one. Price will be 22.50 for any size of American Apparel, due to the slightly higher print costs that go with the three-color high-quality printing process.
As promised, here is my video of this year’s massive Dreamhack Winter event. I didn’t even come close to visiting all the cool places, but it does give a great impression of the scale and fun of this event. I recommend the HD version of the video, available at Vimeo, for your viewing pleasure.
The music is ‘Nostrand’, by Ratatat, from the album Classics. Hope to see you at one of the many LAN-parties I will be attending in 2010!
It took me a solid two days, but here I am reporting in from Jönköping, Sweden! I took a good amount of time to take a plethora of pictures, use my press access to get to hard-to-reach places, and select and edit photos to give you a nice impression of the crazy little universe that’s known as Dreamhack. If you didn’t read it in my last post: Dreamhack is the world’s biggest computer festival. Me and 12-15 thousand other geeks are here and try to make the best of it.
Apart from file sharing and playing games, there’s opportunities to compete in the so-called ‘eSports’ ladders, sit in a tank of the Swedish army, try and win laptops, play pre-release games like RUSE, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft 2, and much more. In fact, there’s so much to do that you’d probably be fine without a computer, but over tenthousand gamers with their box on one of the tables in Dreamhack’s many halls beg to differ. Read on for a link to the flickr set, my trip here, and impressions of the venue floor.
I wrote about The Reality last month, which was a large-ish LAN party where 700 people brought their computers to play games, share files and have a good time together. This month, however, I’m going to Dreamhack Winter in Sweden, the world’s largest LAN party. An expected 13 to 15.000 visitors will attend the party, supported by the world’s biggest and best network hardware.
Last year, Dreamhack used a 40Gbit internet connection and top of the line Cisco network hardware that allowed a throughput of 92 terabits per second. It’s also the home of ‘eSport’ championships and creative competitions.
All of this is made possible by Intel and Asus, who are sponsoring Duh-Events to bring the Belgian/Dutch qualifying Counter-Strike clan and a handful of press and enthusiasts to the event with a touring bus under the moniker ‘Pack4Dreamhack’. I am going as both – with a press pass in one hand and my Macbook Pro in the other, I’ll be reporting from Jönköping as the event progresses, wrapping up with an HD video like at WWDC this year. For realtime coverage of the craziness, it’s worth following me on twitter.
My tech-pack has been expanded and adjusted somewhat for this trip:
• Macbook Pro (17″) and Incase sleeve
• Koyono Built Laptop bag
• A PSP for the bus ride
• Steelseries Siberia headset with Griffin iMic
• My old iPhone & iPhone 3G
• Incase iPhone 3G battery
• Logitech G15 keyboard
• Razer Boomslang CE mouse
• Extra large black mouse pad
• Kensington Lock cable
• The usual array of power adaptors, chargers, and batteries
• Cat6E network cable
• Canon EOS XS SLR camera
• Canon SD960 camera
• and of course an extra Exploded Settings shirt!
I’m getting on the bus November 25th and will arrive at the Dreamhack venue in Jönköping the next morning. If you’re in the vicinity, let me know and we can meet up and have a drink together!