Category: Archive

I “ve arrived to San Jose,CA late on Sunday. By coincidence, there were three other speakers on the same plane from New York: Shashank Tiwari, Elad Elrom, and Jeff Tapper. A short taxi ride to Marriott and one of the conference organizers, Tom Ortega, gives us a warm welcome in the lobby, “Hello guys! Please don “t do it again. Don “t get on the same plane next time ndash; I can “t afford to lose four speakers rdquo;.

After a quick check-in to a nice room I spent a couple of hours drinking with a flex crowd in a couple of bars.

The morning after.

The shuttle bus took us to the huge eBay campus. Most of the people on the bus DID NOT have iPhones, can you believe this? Tom was greeting everyone at the door.

Several hundred of people gathered to hear Adobe “s Deepa “s keynote. Her conference badge reads “I “m Deepa rdquo;. Nice! On the next conference I “ll steal this idea from her and will carry the tag “I “m Yakov rdquo;.

I “ve been looking at this crowd and was thinking to myself, “If Tom and John will keep 360Flex running, in two years it “ll become bigger than Adobe MAX for Flex developers. rdquo;

In the morning, I “ve attended a presentation on Web analytics (Google vs. Omniture) and after lunch, my yesterday “s drinking buddy Jesse shared with the grateful audience his use of Flex plus two (!) more frameworks in the same project. Jesse is a good presenter, and I always come to see him regardless of the subject he “s talking about.

At 4PM I delivered a preso titled “Boring Presentation on Libraries and Modules rdquo;. A hundred people gathered in the room (here they are), and I was talking for 80 minutes and then was answering questions for another 25 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised that a non-flashy subject of modularization gets such an interest. People started working on decent size enterprise RIA “s and need to properly cut them into pieces.

This presentation was videotaped and sooner or later will become available online. For now, I can offer you a video of its shorter version that I made last year at Flash Camp Wall Street.

The beer was served right at eBay and the networking part began. These are some things that I “d like to share with you.

1. After certain conversations with certain people and by applying the Sherlock Holmes ” method of deductive reasoning I came out with the release date of Flex 4. To be on the safe side, I “ll give you two dates: March 29 or March 31 of 2010. Let “s wait and see if I got it right or I got it right.

2. I met a guy who runs a tiny company of a couple of Flex developers. He was complaining that it “s very difficult for him to find Flex talent for his projects because he couldn “t afford to hire and keep on billing $100 per hour consultants. He was surprised to learn that our company can easily offer him senior (I mean it) Flex/Java developers working remotely for a lot more modest rates. This is not the first time I hear that people assume that Farata Systems works only for Wall Street giants. We have lots of happy customers and the smallest one has only two employees.

3. I met a guy who has a nice visualization piece that may compliment our ClearBI Flex reporter. For some reason, there “s a surge of interest to ClearBI during the last month or so. We haven “t open sourced it yet, but if you want to play with it, here “s the URL of the demo server. You may find some old screencasts showing how to create a custom report based on the raw grid of data, but try just hitting the buttons on the screen and you should be able to figure out how to add grouping, sorting, computed columns with formulas, and other goodies to create a report to your liking.

The dinner at P.F.Chang with several flexers was closing my first day of this very friendly and high-tech event. Looking forward for today “s learning.

Another day, another framework.

There are two types of Web applications: those that care about their discoverability and those that don “t.

If you are developing a Web application in Flash or Flex for, say, financial advisers (FA) of a brokerage house or salesmen of an insurance company, discoverability is not a concern because FA “s or salesmen of your firm will be told, “Go to so-and-so URL and use so-and-so application rdquo;. We can happily say that both FA “s and salesmen have discover their RIA.

If you are developing a consumer-oriented RIA , you want random people to discover their pizzeria, department store, medical office or a car dealership. Why a doctor needs a Web site? Mainly to be discovered by people from the neighborhood if someone will google for a family physician. You can say that some doctors also use Web site to post some useful articles or medical form for their existing customers. True. But still, the main reason for investing into development of a Web site is to increase visibility.

Recently, I wrote a blog about iPhone and Flash , and half of this blog was about excellent Google indexing of the plain HTML information about services of our company.

Today, I “ve read an article by Armando Roggio titled “Best practices for Search-Optimized Flash Development rdquo; . This article was supposed to give you a feeling that Google really knows how to peek inside your swf file. The author states, “Need proof? Run this search on Google right now, filetype:swf + “comic books. rdquo; rdquo;

Sure enough, if you “ll do it, the search will return several .swf files that have the words “comic books rdquo; hard-coded inside. But most of the RIA bring the content dynamically and rightly so. A well designed RIA arrives to the client with the code that makes the screen pretty. The information about the upcoming sale of your local Ford dealer or recall of millions Toyota cars is not hardcoded into the Web site, but is dynamically downloaded from the server. This creates a nice separation of responsibilities ndash; people who create the content of the site don “t have to modify the Web site every time they want to announce a weekend sale at Ford dealerships.

Will Google index and find dynamically loaded content? I don “t think so.

Mr. Roggio quotes in his article executives of Adobe and Google stating how they collaborate and work hard on improving the situation. I “m sure they do, but so far I don “t see the results.

That article also states the following:

“In fact on June 18, 2009, Google announced that it could load external Flash resources, including text, HTML, XML, additional SWFs, and more. This feature means that you can create a Flash application that draws its content from a structured and external XML document. rdquo; And a little later the author states, “As of this past summer, Google can and does retrieve this external files. rdquo;

I love Google and use it a hundred times a day, but this announcement (if it really was made by Google) is simply not true, and I can easily prove it to you.

Once again, I “ll direct you to the Flash based Web site of our company . Now I “ll reveal some insider “s information. Our Web site is written in ActionScript 3, but the content of every view you see there comes from external XML files.

For example, if I decide to change the information on the Home view, there is no need to recompile the Web site. I can just use Notepad, TextEdit, Vi, or any other available plain text editor to modify the content of the home.xml file that is being downloded as soon as the compiled SWF file arrives to the Web browser.

Let “s an experiment. The Home view of our Web site starts with the following long statement:

“Do you want your RIA application to be done right the first time? We ‘ve built lots of great RIA applications for our clients. Our teams of Flex developers are geographically located in the USA and Eastern Europe. ”

Now, copy/paste this long text fragment (with or without double quotes) to Google “s search field. Hit Search. Do you see Farata Systems anywhere in the vicinities? I don “t.

This Web site was deployed about three years ago, and this poor little text we “ve been using in this experiments hasn “t been changed for a couple of years either waiting for any search engine to notice and index it.

You may ask, “Did you use deep linking available in Flex to provide unique URL “s for different views of the in your Web site helping search engines to index the content? rdquo; No I didn “t. Our Web site was created in ActionScript long time ago to be as light as possible.

But I know a firm with a complex commercial Web site written in Flex that did use deep linking feature, but it didn “t help. They are considering re-developing the Web site in HTML/JavaScript. Unfortunately, this won “t help, unless they will put the entire content of the Web site inside HTML (but this is not possible and stupid). Using AJAX won “t make them happy if they decide to keep the content dynamically loaded.

If you “ve developed a large Web application with deep linking Flex feature and have good results in terms of Web analytics, I “d love to hear from you.

Now the happy end.

I “ll continue recommending Flex and Flash as the platform of choice for developing of the enterprise RIA. Don “t pay attention to those who predict that HTML5 will kill Flash. It won “t happen for another 10 years, and we need to develop and deploy our RIA today. The fact that someone can afford to pay H.264 patent licensing royalties and stream the video has very little to do with a robust and well written platform for enterprise RIA such as Flash.

But if your cousin Vinnie asks you to develop a Web site for his new Italian restaurant, use Flash very carefully – mainly for embedding interactive widgets here and there.

The first two weeks of March I “ll be vacationing in training rooms ndash; teaching and learning Flex. I used the word vacationing because I love this part of my work the most.

March 1-2: Advanced Master Class on Flex in Brussels, Belgium. This public 2-day training becomes more and more popular. During the last 8 months we “ve taught this class in New York, Boston, Toronto, London, and Moscow. To the best of my knowledge, no one else offers such an advanced curriculum as public training. On the night of March 2 I ‘ll be co-speaking at the Belgium Flex Users Group.

Here “s something you may not know. Viktor Yanukovich, the newly elected President of the Ukraine will visit Belgium on March 1. The real reason is not to meet political leaders of Belgium and European Union, but to attend our class to become more flexible and invite Farata Systems to teach the same class in Ukraine in June of 2010. We “ll definitely consider this.

March 7-10: On arrival from Belgium, I “ll just have time to laundry my Farata t-shirts and have a couple of dinners with my family, and then board the next flight to San Jose, CA. Yep, it “s time for 360Flex conference, which as of today is my favorite Flex gathering. This is a No BS event. For independent developers by independent developers. 40 sessions, 2 panels, 4 Sunday Hands-On sessions. Networking. Beer. Good energy. Solid technical content.I even recorded a 40-sec video to share with you my excitement!

I “ll deliver an interesting and useful for enterprise Flex developers talk titled “Boring presentation on Flex libraries and modules “. The rest of the time I “ll spend in the meeting rooms listening to what other developers are up to.

In the evening, I “ll be glad to join you for a Johny Walker. Be there. Join several hundreds of Flex developers who are in the know!

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 424 2420 Farata 20 4 2971 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:&”Table Normal&”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:&”&”; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:&”Times New Roman&”; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Next week we are running a training class in Belgium, and I went to a nearby Staples store here in New Jersey to order printing of multiple copies of handouts for the students. This was supposed to be a quick and routine task.

A 20-year old girl took my flash drive and opened the PowerPoint to be printed. She was hesitant to take this order and asked a more experience worker to help. This lady looked at the slides with our company logo on them and here “s our dialog:

– Do you have a business card to proof you work for this company and are not trying to make illegal copies?

– I don “t have it on me, but two months ago I placed exactly the same printing order right here.

– Well, apparently I made a mistake back then. You must show me the business card.

– It “s raining outside. Can I pay for the order now and bring you the business card when I return to pick it up?

– No you can “t. I need to see your business card first.

– Please go to our company Web site and you “ll see my name there

– We don “t have Internet access here

– I have Internet access in my iPhone and can show it to you?

– We need a printed proof that you work for this company

To be honest with you, I was just bluffing about the iPhone. Our company “s Web site is done in Flash and iPhone won “t support it for another six months or so.

I went outside. It seems I can think faster in the rain. Eureka! I got a business credit card in my wallet, which has my name and the name of our company that matches the logo in the PowerPoint. Back to the store.

– Can you please use my credit card as a proof that I work for this company? Just make a copy of it, and tomorrow I “ll bring you the business card.

– We are not allowed to make copies of credit cards.

– OK, don “t make a copy. I “ll be paying with it anyway and you “ll have a copy of the pay slip.

– We are not allowed to do this. I need your business card.

I went back to the car, drove back home and returned to Staples with my business card. This time the young girl was alone. Without saying a word, I put the business card and the flash drive on the counter. She pick up the phone and made the store announcement, “Vicky, please come to the printing department. rdquo; Apparently, that supervisor “s name was Vicky.

-Why do you need Vicky now? She might not like the design of my business card or something?

– I didn “t say this.

Luckily, Vicky was busy somewhere and she called back and allowed the girl to proceed with my order. The girl made a copy of my driver “s license and a business card and the rest was just a simple routine.

I went home thinking to myself that the last time I had this kind of service was many many years ago when I lived in the Soviet Union. Technically, these Staples workers did everything by the book, but they “ve just lost the customer by not willing to bend a bit. This is not an American way of doing business. Not at all.

Update. Next day, I went to pick up my order. There was a different shift in the Copy/Print department – nice and friendly people. While returning my printed manuals they ‘ve suggested how I could save money and applied the discount right away. It seemed that the Soviet Staples Union has collapsed overnight (once again). I was back in the USA! That ‘s the way to go! I ‘ll continue going to Staples. But I ‘ll be smarter now and will try to avoid that Soviet crew.

When people are screaming, “I won ‘t use the soft unless it ‘s open sourced “, they actually mean the following “I won ‘t to use the soft unless is free and readily supported by authors “. People just forget that open source means that the source code is open and they are more than welcome TO READ, IMPROVE, and CONTRIBUTE BACK to the community. Those, who make the most noise don ‘t give a shit about the community. They care only about themselves.

If they run into an issue, they shout “Give me the f ‘ing author! Let him fix his junk! ”

People are nuts. They don ‘t appreciate someone ‘s time. Didn ‘t you want the free and open source software? F ‘ing take it! It ‘s open. Check it out from the version control system, change it to your liking and rebuild it. If you want to be nice to the community, become a contributor and submit it back to the code repository. Some licenses don ‘t even ask you to submit your changes back. The MIT license reads the following;

“Get the code I ‘ve been writing during the last year spending endless nights stealing time from my kids, spouse and mistresses. Do whatever you want with it, but please, please, please don ‘t remove my name form the code comments stating that I ‘m kinda original author. Would you be so kind and leave my name there? Promise? Cool, man! Just use it, I ‘ll keep writing more code for you cause I love doing it. ”

Professional programmers know that when a piece of software doesn ‘t work, and you tried but couldn ‘t figure out what ‘s wrong with it, you go to a colleague, he gives you a warm hug and simply says, “RTFM “, which stands for Read The F ‘ing Manual! This usually helps. It ‘s time to use another acronym: RTFC – Read The F ‘ing Code!

Just read the blog “I guess donating code is not enough anymore “. When I run into people like Keith, I ‘m getting a little pissed off. Just a little bit.

A year ago, our company has open sourced Clear Toolkit is a set of components and code generators that make enterprise Flex/Java developers a lot more productive. We wrote and published decent documentation, but recently I had a similar correspondence with one frustrated user who didn ‘t take time to read the manual. When I answered RTFM, he responded angrily, “I thought I ‘ve read somewhere that your product comes with one month of free tech support “.

Are you serious? RTFC!

I can tell you more, giving away free and open source is dangerous because some idiots can spoil your reputation by badmouthing you online. They ‘ll happily do it, if you didn ‘t spend enough time helping them learning your soft, or if they will actually open the code and will find some inefficient fragments written by you at 3AM just to make that damn thing work!

If you don ‘t like my open source software, be f ‘ing nice and do me a favor – stop using it, but do it quietly, please! I apologize for the hours you spent trying to use my software. I can write you an email with all apologies you want, but please have some respect for me taking time trying to make your life a bit easier. Didn ‘t work this time. Don ‘t want to RTFC? It ‘s fine with me, but please stay cool.

I hate giving software away for free, because people are f ‘king nuts!

The project plan is approved. The budget is in place. Deliverables of phase 1, 2 and 3 are defined. Developers started working. The business analyst Romeo analyzes the business and meet with end users on daily basis. The Project manager, Lord Montague, manages the project. Life “s good.


Juliet, the end user really likes how the future application is shaping up.

Two months later hellip;

Juliet, “Romeo, you guys are doing a wonderful job ndash; I love this new version of the app! rdquo;

Romeo, “Juliet, your wish is my order! rdquo; 
Juliet, “Oh, by the way, Romeo, can you ask the servants to add one extra combobox to the search screen? And one more little thingy here is missing and just one checkbox there. rdquo;

Romeo loves Juliet understanding that she pays his bills. He goes to Lord Montague and asks him to include these little changes to the project plan.


Now let me ask you a question. What “s the difference between good and bad girls? Good girls do the same things as the bad ones, but they do them well. The same applies to project managers.

This is the crucial point in the life of any project. The manager has to have balls to say No to Julia, otherwise his servants will be Le Miserable till the end of the project. Trust me, after the first “Oh, by the way hellip; rdquo; comes the second, then the third hellip;

Good project manager should absorb all outside requests, process and prioritize them to ensure that his/her developers don “t work in a firefighting mode. What “s the right answer to the very first “Oh, by the way hellip; rdquo;? I “d try this politically correct one:

 “Juliet, you know how Romeo and I love you! We “ll be glad to accommodate your request, but you need to make a choice and let us know about your decision:

1.We “ll add the combo as soon as possible, that little thingy, and one checkbox as you request, but I “ll have to change the project plan to postpone other deliverables.

2. We “ll continue working on the approved project plan items, but will add the combo, that little thingy, and one checkbox in phase 4 of the project.


3. We “ll hire another servant to work on the combo, that little thingy, one checkbox, and all future ad hoc request that you may have. 

We work in agile mode, and completely understand that requirements can change all the time, so let “s be flexible with the deadlines too. rdquo;

Yeah, yeah, yeah hellip; Sometimes it “s not easy to pull it off. You gotta be strong! Let me remind you the words from the Project Manager “s Ballad by Des “ree:






Listen as your day unfolds


Challenge what the future holds


Try and keep your head up to the sky


Lovers, they may cause you tears


Go ahead release your fears 


Stand up and be counted 


Don ‘t be ashamed to cry


You gotta be 
You gotta be bad,

you gotta be bold 


You gotta be wiser, you gotta be hard


You gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger 


You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm 


You gotta stay together 


All I know, all I know, love will save the day 


hellip;


It won “t be easy to convince Juliet that an agile mode doesn “t mean anarchy, but these days it “s not easy to find good servants too. Slowly but surely, they “ll quit and start working for the Capulet family.

Oh, by the way, Juliet, can you approve the updated project schedule?

The recent announcement of iPad has ignited yet another wave of emotional discussions around the role of Flash Player in the evolution of mankind. People easily take sides and everyone seems to know what “s right and what “s wrong. Actually the word lsquo; “people rdquo; is too vague in this context, because vast majority of the population has no idea what Flash Player is, and they don “t have to know! As long as they go to youtube and it plays videos people are happy and casually say, “Youtube is a great site! rdquo;

On the same note, I have no idea how my car operates. Back in my school days, I “ve learned that some stuff burns inside the engine producing another powerful stuff that make the wheels spin. Do I need to know more? Absolutely not. I lease cars and change them every three years. Once a year I visit those 10-min oil change shops, and people open up the hood and do something to my car, which supposedly helps it run longer.

BTW, believe it or not, 80% of the people working in these shops don “t have deep understanding of how the car operates either. They have a better idea than me, but only people who designed the engine of my car know how it works.

The same holds true for Flash Player, which divides the Earth population into four distinct groups. The first group has about a dozen of people who know how Flash Player really works.

A couple of hundred people belong to the second group. They believe they know how Flash Player works, and I “m one of them. For example, in the upcoming seminars in Brussels and San Antonio, CA you “ll hear me explaining how Flash Players slices your code and allocates CPU cycles depending on the nature of the program it runs ndash; more for UI rendering and less for the ActionScript Byte Code, or vice versa. I believe I understand how it works and will be happy to share with you my beliefs.

The third group of people consists of millions of software developers who either believe that Flash Player is a proprietary trash that should burn in hell, or those who say there “s no life without Flash Player.

The fourth group are the people who never knew what the Flash Player was and lived happily ever after.

Now let “s talk business, pretending that we understand how it works. Let “s enjoy badmouthing big guys: Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft. It “s easy because they are filthy rich corporations that want your hard earned money for their proprietary software that crashes, gives you blue screens, works slow, and has as many bugs as software written by you.

Yes, Apple products look polished. But until you can afford them it “s clear that only stupid people buy them – your netbook running Windows can do the same things for cheap. Similarly both Hundai and Mercedes owners consider each other idiots. Among computer literate people there “s a group of fanatics who equally hate both Apple and Microsoft as they want only free and open source software. They don “t value their time and prefer to spend hours on making things work and reinventing the wheel than using someone “s proprietary products. These people are ready to constantly adjust and fix their HTML/JavaScript (do people still use the AJAX word?) Web applications, but will never accept the benefits of a cross-platform proprietary Virtual Machine such as Adobe “s Flash Player.

Apple wants complete control on all the software that runs on their mobile hardware. Since they can “t control the Flash Player “s code they don “t want it there. Actually, Apple doesn “t want any competition to their system software on iPhone and iPad OS. You can use any Web browser as long as its name starts with an “S rdquo; and ends with an “i rdquo;. They invite developers to create programs for iPhone/iPad, but you can sell them only through iStore and that “s the main reason why they don “t want Flash Player there because people will immediately start selling their games written for Flash.

On one hand, Apple says that Flash Player uses lots of resources and works slow on iPhone OS. It doesn “t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if one program runs slower than others on the same hardware there “s gotta be a way to improve its performance unless the owner of the hardware doesn “t want it to happen. And Apple is not willing to give Adobe the low-level API to use iPhone “s hardware more efficiently. Today, Apple wants to maintain the image of Flash Player as poorly written program. As per Wired, Steve Jobs called Adobe lazy.

People who “ve been in the industry long enough remember how fifteen years ago Microsoft applied similar technique to kill WordPerfect, the competitor of Word at the time. Microsoft was the owner of the code base of both THE OS and Word, and they didn “t want other word processors in the vicinities.

So far Adobe can “t find the key to the heart of Apple and Flash Player suffers.

I “d also want to bring your attention to another aspect that hurts Flash Player on the consumer-oriented market of Web applications. I “m talking about search engine optimization (SEO). If you were a small business, would you consider creating a Web site for your company in Flash as opposed to HTML/Java script? Most of the small business owners wouldn “t want it. Why? Because they want their services to be found on the Web. If I sell vacuum cleaners or run a brothel in Nevada, I want the highest possible visibility on the Web.

Let “s take a concrete example ndash; a Web site of our company that sells consulting services in development of rich enterprise applications with Flex and Java. Our Web site http://www.faratasystems.com runs in compiled ActionScript under Flash Player getting its content from external XML files.

What are the chances that someone who “s looking for Flex consultants on Yahoo! or via Bing search engine will find our Web site? You got it! We have zero chances of being found. What about Google? The chances are pretty much the same. During the last two years I hear that Adobe gave Google some mysterious headless Flash Player (a.k.a Ichabod) that knows how to index an external content played by Flash Player. Does it work? I have my reservations.

You may say, “Yakov, if you know all this, why in the world have you created the Web site of your company in Flash? rdquo; No worries guys, I “m not that stupid. The thing is that I have big mouth. I blog and write articles heavily sprinkled with the proper keywords in plain HTML and JavaScript, and it helps.

Let “s do a hands-on experiment. Go to Google and type the following words: enterprise development flex. At the time of this writing, the first two entries on the first page refers to a book “Enterprise Development with Flex rdquo; that I co-authored with two of my colleagues at Farata Systems. The third and fourth entries will send you to my blogs at insideria.com. The fifth entry is an excerpt from our book published at Adobe Developers Connection site. The next entry will lead you to our book on Amazon.com.

The entry number seven is from flexblog.faratasystems.com ndash; it “s our WordPress blog. None of these entries returned by Google was Flash content ndash; all sites were plain HTML. Got the picture?

If you have spare time, check the second, third, fourth page of Google search results, and good luck in finding our nice, clean, and well designed Flash-only faratasystems.com.

Let “s get back to the original question, “What about a small business that sells vacuum cleaners online? rdquo; The chances are slim that they will write books and articles about their business hence their chances to be found online, if done in Flash, are close to zero. Does it mean that using Flash Player for consumer oriented sites is a bad idea? Not at all, but you should play smart. If I “d be developing that vacuum cleaners ” Web site, I “d do it in HTML/JavaScript embedding Flash content in some portions of the Web site.

The picture is absolutely different in the enterprise world of rich Internet applications. This is where Flash Player and corresponding technologies shine.

When I was developing a front end for a trading application of a foreign exchange company, I didn “t need it to be found by Google. I needed it to look and perform well, and nothing beats the Flash/J2EE combo there. Take another example ndash; an occasionally connected application for salesmen on the road. Adobe AIR (it embeds Flash Player) is the best tool for this job.

What “s the bottom line? Flash Player is an important part of today “s Web landscape. It “s not perfect, but there are areas where it “s the best if not the only solution. What about HTML 5? If the history of HTML 4 means anything to you, don “t expect HTML 5 to be a standard way of developing Web applications for another several years. It ‘s great that Google experiments with the new video tag, but what it has to do with today ‘s RIA? If you need to create an application that looks good and performs well today, go Flash Player 10.1 and above.

As to Apple and their bad behavior in iPhone OS, they won “t last long without Flash Player there. Take a look at this video showing great performance of Flash Player 10.1 on Nexus, the closest iPhone competitor. As soon as more smart mobile devices from other vendors (all of them will support Flash Player) will start competing with iPhone, Apple will surrender.

Even the Berlin Wall fell. This one will collapse too.

Here ‘s yet another well written blog by Rachel Luxemburg that looks like a petition to Steve Jobs. So?

Such write-ups won ‘t have any effect on the Apple ‘s decision about Flash Player. It ‘s a cold blooded decision, and if the real reason for not letting FP on iPhone OS is to keep control of the applications and have a cut from the iStore, writing blogs and I ‘m also a big fan of Adobe software typing this comment on MBP and want Flash Player to be on iPhone and iPad. So?

Open letters won ‘t help. Begging won ‘t help. For some reason, Leonard Cohen ‘s words come to mind:

Ah but a man never got a woman back

Not by begging on his knees

Or Id crawl to you baby

And Id fall at your feet

And Id howl at your beauty

Like a dog in heat

And Id claw at your heart

And Id tear at your sheet

Id say please, please

Im your man

If Flash Player really performs poorly on iPhone OS, as John Gruber describes , than it can be resolved only by two people: Apple ‘s and Adobe ‘s CEOs.

Lee Brimelow, a respected Adobe evangelist published a really cool blog showing how some Web sites will look like if the Flash Player support is turned off in the Web browser. So? There ‘s an iPhone version of CNN that shows videos using Apple ‘s QuickTime instead of Flash Player.

If Apple will insist on having 100% control as to what software can run on iPhone/iPad, they ‘ll force third-party developers to bend and find the way to play by the rules. If you are a small software vendor, do you want to ignore the market of 50 million of hot devices (iPhones)? Even if you are a large software vendor, you still don ‘t want to ignore this market, and Adobe found a brilliant way to get into developing software for iPhone OS and offering it in iStore in ActionScript in CS5.

Something ‘s gotta give.

I “m proud to consider myself an upper middle class American . Why am I so proud about it? Because I haven “t been born in an upper middle class American family. I came to the USA 18 years ago with $200 in my pocket on a visitor “s visa. Don “t rush reporting on me to the Immigration authorities. I was legal in this country each and every day since. Then came the work visa (H1B), after that the green card, and back in 2001, I became an American citizen.

Our family consists of me (silver 15 rdquo; MacBook Pro), two sons (black 13 rdquo; MacBook and a silver 13 rdquo; MacBook) and my wife (post World War II Windows PC own by her employer, a filthy rich international bank). I also have an iPhone.

To complete the picture, I need to mention, that occasionally I “m getting separated with my MacBook Pro. For example, last week I “ve been skiing in French Alps and didn “t get it with me on the slopes. Its battery absolutely sucks: 90min and I bought it only a bit more than a year ago. My smarty pants son David told me that it “s my fault ndash; I shouldn “t be keeping MacBook plugged in most of the time as the battery needs to get regularly fully drained.

Thank you very much, but the batteries in any laptop suck big time. A colleague of my purchased a 17 rdquo; MacBook Pro because it has 6-hour battery. No way, Jose. I “m not going to be carrying this grand piano with me all the time. I “m on the plane quite often and want my computa to be up all the time (this stupid seatguru.com lied to me twice about the AC outlets on the planes).

Now, give me a sec for a self promo ndash; in month I “m flying to Belgium teaching a class (8-hr flight) followed by the 6-hour flight to San Jose, CA to speak at 360Flex conference .

By this fall I hope to find a reason to purchase for myself a new 13 rdquo; MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and Static State Disk drive. To make my wife happy, I “ll give her my 15 rdquo;. These are the long term plans.

Now, let me try to explain why should I purchase an iPad as soon as it becomes available.

Two months ago, our friend called me telling that her daughter Sandra, a UPenn freshmen, wants a MacBook. Sandra “s mother also carries a Blackberry and knows how to use Google. A quick search revealed her that she could “ve bought a decent Window laptop for half the price. She called me saying, “You know, I “m really proud that Sandra was accepted to UPenn, but can you give me a reason, why should I spend my money on Mac rather than PC? rdquo;I thought for a split second and replied, “Because it “s cool rdquo;. Sandra ‘s mother replied, “Got it rdquo;.

Why people buy Mercedes cars if Hundai will also take you from point A to point B and, actually they will change oil and transmissions for free for many years to come? Why? It “s elementary, Watson! Because you want to enjoy the ride! Have you ever heard that solid chunk-sound when you close the door in Mercedes? Can you compare it to those Jingle Bells of Hundai?

Do you know what a life is without worrying about installing anti-virus programs? Have you ever used an OS that “s created to be so intuitive that you can “t believe how they could “ve made it so proactive? Do you know that we, Mac OS users don “t have to remember an entire directory tree structure and make twenty clicks to find that picture of your lovely wife Natasha? Guess what? I just start typing in a little spotlight field N,a,t hellip;.Here you go!

Do you want to enjoy the ride or you are one of these masochists Linuxoids who scream, “We want free and open source software, or else hellip; rdquo; As someone put it, “Only those who don “t value their time can say that Linux is free rdquo;.

I “m OK with using a high end proprietary software and gadgets. And Apple is the company that exceeds my expectations so far. I love my iPhone even though AT amp;T sucks as a phone provider. Verizon is better. So what? Droid-shmoid hellip; NOT COOL ENOUGH. Who said that a cell phone “s main feature is to make a call and maintain a steady connection? It “s so Ninetieth hellip; I want a slick device with a choice of dirt cheap 140,000 applications. iPhone fits the bill.

Yesterday, there were two major shows on TV: Steve Jobs presenting iPad and Obama with his first State of the Union address. Obama got really lucky that Apple “s announcement was not scheduled at the same time. You know what I mean.

By now, you should be warmed up and irritated enough thinking, “Enough already, what about the iPad? rdquo; OK, I “ll give you some random thoughts.

1. iPad is not a replacement of any notebook. It doesn “t have Microsoft Office. Most of the computer users can “t live without it.

2. It doesn “t have Eclipse IDE either. This will make it useless (as a computer) for half of the software developers of the planet Earth.

3. They claim up to 10 hours of battery life. Based on the history of Apple, I would assume that you “ll achieve such performance only if you turn that device on, put it on the table and leave it alone. The light will go off in 10 hours. If this doesn “t sound like a reasonable usage pattern, the battery in the new iPad will, probably last for 6 hours, which means three movies on my plane to Belgium. I “ll spend the remaining two hours drinking wine and eating other airplane gourmet food.

4. Now I “m going to have to pack into my bag both MacBook and iPad. The latter doesn ‘t have USB so it needs the mothership computer anyway. Don “t try to sneak through the metal detector carrying iPad in the pocket like this.

5. The Sony eReader becomes the most useless gadget I have in the house. People say that Amazon “s Kindle becomes a joke too.

6. Flash Player is not supported. Because of this I lost my $20 bet with Jesse Warden. Apple is afraid of letting a plethora of the Flash applications and games without getting their cuts as they do with all applications in iStore. Excuses that Flash Player drains the battery and takes all CPU (who cares on a single-process OS?) are not serious. To get yourself prepared to the iPad experience, got to Safari Preferences and uncheck the Enable Plugins. You ‘ll see how the Web sites that use Flash Player look like. If you are too lazy to do this on your own, enjoy the ultimate browsing experience over here. But this picture with broken pictures in place of Flash Player content doesn ‘t give you the real story though.The popularity of the device will force some of the third-party software vendors to change the way they deliver their content. For example, CNN Web site has an iPhone version, where they display videos using Apple ‘s QuickTime player instead of Flash Player.

7. If you are in a software development, learn how to program for iPhone/iPad. I “m getting there. No need to learn this ugly Objective-C. Adobe “s CS5 and ActionScript is all you need.

8. Yesterday, I went to Staples (they have low prices) and noticed a sexy 10 rdquo; Toshiba netbook for $399 with a 10-hour battery. So? Where are the killer apps? Not cool enough.

9. Five years from now, most salesmen, UPS drivers and police officers will carry not those sturdy-and-ugly pads they have now, but iPads.

10. The iPad doesn “t have a Webcam. No video “Hi, mom! rdquo; on Skype. No funny faces on instant messengers either.

11. The next version of iPad can be customized. No, I “, not talking about pink iPads for girls. The spot where you “d expect a WebCam can be used to hold a nice size diamond. Since every woman will carry an iPad anyway, a diamond will indicate that she “s engaged.

12. The cheapest version (Wi-Fi, no 3G) goes for $499. This all you need as long as you won “t think about this device as a replacement for your main computa. Of course, if you are a commuta, spending long hours on the bus or train browsing through a fresh newspaper on iPad makes sense if you can shell out yet another $30 for the 3G data plan (a funny option of $15 for 250Mb can be ignored) . Otherwise, go with Wi-Fi iPad. By setting the entry price so low, Apple wants to kill the competition – why get something regular for $399 if you can own a high-end accessory for just one bill more?

13. If you are a music fan, you have you 160GB iPod anyway, so it “s hard to justify why purchase more than 16GB of storage in iPad? OK, get 32GB model if you have some spare cash.

14. Remember, an iPad is an addition to your gadgetry, not a replacement for anything.

15. Twenty years ago, back in Ukraine I dreamed of having a personal computer at home. What kind? A computer, you, moron! Any computer would make me happy. Here in America, people are dying from making choices each day and now we have one more – the iPad. Please do me a favor and watch this 20-min talk by Barry Shwartz, which, hopefully, will help you in making this choice.




The day before iPad announcement, after reading about Apple “s quarterly results, I purchased some AAPL shares at $203. The last time I purchased any stock was 9 years ago. I “ll keep it for a while.
 Let ‘s see if I should ‘ve stayed away from the stock market for another 10 years.


Consume, consume, consume. Edward Berneays (Sigmund Freud “s nephew) has great followers who know how to convince you that your life will be miserable unless you purchase yet another gadget. This time it “s iPad. Don “t think too much. Just get it, will you? I sure will.

The time of my winter vacation has arrived. Have you ever had a lower back pain that lasted for two weeks right before your skiing vacation? The question was if those stupid muscles are needed while skiing on the slopes of Alps.I can tell you for sure – they get tense when I sneeze.

Our plane with about 20 amateur kamikaze landed in Geneva, Switzerland on time and our old time friend and travel agent Dora was meeting us with the bus with other 30 people who came to this pretty boring city a day earlier. Our ski resort is located in up French Alps in two hour bus ride.

BTW, Seatguru lied about electric outlets on our plane. Second time in then last month.

The plane landed on time, but our ski bag didn “t. While submitting the claim at the lost and found, I explained that we are kinda need skis as we are planning to start skiing tomorrow. They politely answered that if the bag won “t be delivered to your hotel within than 24 hours, we “ll get 100 Swiss francs. I asked, “What if they “ll never find our bag? rdquo;

“Don “t worry, they will. If not, call Swiss Air for further arrangements. rdquo;

The problem was that my wife has also packed two pairs of ski pants , gloves and socks in the ski bag. This is the case when traveling in a large group helps. We “ve borrowed most of the stuff we needed from other people and rented skis.

The bag has arrived to our village two days later. Now I want more than a hundred franks.

I “m writing this after four days of skiing and the weather was great. I “ve been wearing wide stretchable belt, which helped with my back. So far there were not too many casualties in our group: one twisted knee, one bronchitis, and one serious lower back pain (not mine). These poor three things watch TV, eat, drink and try enjoy seeing happy red faces of skiers returning back from the slopes daily.

Actually, there was one more accident that we witnessed and participated in. Our group was sliding on the narrow but almost flat slope. All of a sudden, two of our ladies noticed legs and skis flying down into the woods. We stopped and told our instructor about this. He went into the woods. Sure enough, there was a 65-year old women laying in the snow between the trees. She was scared, her face was scratched, but she was alive! Here “s the picture of our instructor (in red) helping her out of the woods.

On one slope there was a large bump followed by a smaller one followed by a steep slope. A group goes one by one and this lady passes the first bump, but makes a sudden stop in a doggy style scared by an unexpected steep slope. The man who was skiing behind her passes the first bump and then hits this lady “s ass with his head. The man fell but the lady didn “t. She said, “No wonder, this is my favorite position rdquo;. This was funny.

One day, I was boarding the chair lift with two women from our group. We spoke Russian, and noticed a guy who clearly wanted to talk and jumped into our chair lift the last minute. We asked him in Russian, “Where are you from? ” He proudly replied in Russian, “From Moscow. And you? “. I said, “We are from the USA “. The guy exclaimed, “It ‘s so horrible! “.

Having been to Moscow a month ago, I didn ‘t get it. IMHO, if I would compare living in Moscow vs. New York, I would prefer the latter hands down. He also added that he ‘s skiing with a friend who was a poor skiier, and he left him skiing alone. Five minute later, he stared to ask the hotel and room number of our ladies. They didn ‘t tell him the room number, which is nice, because one of them was my wife. Oh, those Russians! Today, I was sitting at the chair lift with five other people. When the lift is about to arrive to the top, someone usually raises the bar so everyone can get off the chair. I said, “Raising the bar. rdquo; A teenage girl sitting next to me immediately replied, “AT amp;T rdquo;. Originally, this was the motto of Cingular , but AT amp;T purchased both Cingular and their motto.

Two more days of skiing and back to work. I love France in general, and Alps in particular.

Drinking coffee and not in Starbucks:

Heineken promises to entertain me. Yeah, right! As you can see, I ‘m not a college kid anymore. My fun begins with Hennessy XO.

On the way back, Swiss Air offered a wide variety of movies to every passenger. Unfortunately, the software development has been outsourced, and French, Germans,and other passengers had to make a tough decision while selecting a language of the movie.

My blogs about last year ‘s skiing are over here .