I ‘ve been reading a review of this week ‘s CloudExpo that took place in New York City. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to attend this event and can ‘t report on the quality of this conference, but one item took my attention – the author complains about the poor quality of wi-fi connectivity.

Having poor wi-fi at conference is a fact of life regardless of how big or small the event is. If you never organized a conference or a seminar, you may not be aware of the super expensive cost of offering Wi-Fi for all participants. Hotels or conference centers can easily charge $1000 a day for wi-fi for a 30-people event. I don ‘t know how much Javits Center charged for this poor wi-fi, but I ‘m pretty sure it was at least $20,000.

But my main message is not to save a little bit of doe to poor event organizers. I ‘m in general against having wi-fi at any conference.

Let me ask you a simple question, “What an attendee needs wi-fi for? ” I hear you, to check emails. Is it so? If you are a big shot (a team lead or even a c-Level manager) you ‘re definitely carrying. Blackberry, iPhone, or even Droid. So you are covered in that department. If you are not carrying, the business can survive without you being constantly on a leash.

What I really see on each and every conference (I usually attend/run about a dozen events a year) that attendees are casually browsing the Internet, twitting, facebooking, blogging while attending technical presentations. I haven ‘t spotted anyone yet watching a porno movie while attending an IT session, but I ‘m sure it ‘s coming too. Is this why you or your employer paid for the ticket? I don ‘t think so.

To make the story short, I ‘d like all meeting organizers to gather somewhere for a week (Miami, Vegas, Hawaii) and create a new movement (under my leadership): “Say No to conference Wi-Fi “.

To demonstrate my leadership and put the money where my mouth is, I ‘m announcing that there will be no wi-fi at my upcoming seminar on Modularization of Enterprise Flex Applications on May 17 in New York City. Instead, I ‘ll offer a discount code that will save you one hundred of American dollars. Just enter the code saynotowifi at the registration page.

Two most fashionable discussions for this Spring-Summer season are:

1. Will Apple kill Flash Player?

2. Will Apple kill Adobe?

Apple won ‘t kill neither Flash Player nor Adobe. Yes, Steve Jobs is going slightly mad. He goes against all rules in the industry, and there ‘s no logic in his statements. For example, today Apple allowed Opera browser on iPhone violating their own non-compete rule for accepting application for the iPhone OS. But if you think about it, all important shifts in the computing industry were made by “crazy ” people who were pissing against the wind.

At this point, let ‘s enjoy Freddy Mercury, the best impersonator of Steve Jobs – they even look alike. Three other guys in this video play roles of CEO ‘s of Adobe, Google and Microsoft.

But having said all this, it ‘s obvious that Adobe is too slow in releases of new software. Silverlight will become a serious competitor next year. The statements about Flash Player installs on 98% of desktops connected to the Internet don ‘t make me happy any longer as there are close to zero installs of Flash Player on the smart mobile devices. Five years from now most of the end-user computing will be initiated from hand held mobile devices. Google and Android go strong though!

Yes, Android phones will get Flash Player 10.1 in a couple of months but this is not enough. And yes, Windows Mobile 7 will support it too. And yes, Adobe has agreements regarding Flash Player with 19 out of 20 vendors of mobile devices. But that vendor #20 is very important regardless of how slightly mad its leader is.

I ‘m wondering if Adobe is working secretly on their own mobile device? Just a thought. These days any respected software company has to have their own line of mobile phones.

When the outside temperature rises

And the meaning is oh so clear

One thousand and one yellow daffodils

Begin to dance in front of you – oh dear

Are they trying to tell you something?

You ‘re missing that one final screw

You ‘re simply not in the pink my dear

To be honest you haven ‘t got a clue

I ‘m going slightly mad

I ‘m going slightly mad

It finally happened – happened

It finally happened – ooh oh

It finally happened – I ‘m slightly mad

Oh dear!

I ‘m a big fan of Queen, and you?

My deep condolences to the citizens of Poland on today ‘s tragedy – the plane crash, where almost a hundred people died. But what makes things worse is the cowardish coverage of the event by a largest Russian news portal Lenta.ru and Channel 1, the main TV channel of Russia. I just finished watching the main daily news in Russian called “Programa Vremya “. More than a dozen times the Russian KGB-raised leaders Putin and Medvedev and reporters stated either that the “Polish delegation was coming to participate in the 70th anniversary of a massacre ” or “the Polish delegation was coming to participate in a memorial ceremony “.

These cowards didn ‘t have balls to openly state that this was a mass murder of more than 21000 Polish military men by Soviet NKVD – the ancestor of KGB and today ‘s FSB. Most of the Russian people either don ‘t know about this event or were made to believe that this killing was made by Nazis. Until Russia will not find a way to openly admit that Stalin was a criminal of Gitler ‘s caliber, they won ‘t have a future.

Watch the movie Katyn by the famous Polish director Andrzej Waida. Read this article about Katyn or use Google ‘s service to translate and read this entry from Polish Wikipedia or this one from the Russian one.

Yesterday, Apple introduced new features of iPhone OS 4. Nice. Really? Should we embrace the platform and, for a lousy $99, become a developer for this API?

Those people who bothered to go through the application process noticed the difference in a clause 3.3.1, which in the past was just merely stating

“Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. rdquo;,

the new version (the beta of iPhone OS 4.0) has the following interesting fragment:

“Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited). rdquo;

First of all, this change is a stab in the back to Adobe, that invested heavily into enhancing the upcoming CS5 release with the ability to EASILY create iPhone applications in ActionScript. Apple kept quiet (chuckling in the bushes) for all this time and made this licensing change just several days before the release of CS5.

This is just a clear indication of the fact that Apple hates Adobe. And I want to make it clear. It “s not about competition. They simply want to apply techniques of a bully-looking security guard deciding who can get into the only night club in town.

“I don “t like the way you dressed. Get out of here. rdquo;

I love this analogy of what Apple just did:

Unless you ‘ve recorded your MP3 in GarageBand they won ‘t sell your music in iTunes Store.

I “ve seen many products compete, but this is something else, and this is dirty. Why would Steve Jobs make such decisions? I can just make up two reasons:

1. There was some personal conflict between Steve Jobs and Adobe ‘s CEO while the latter worked for Apple.

2. I applaud Steve Jobs for overcoming serious health problems and coming back to make Apple even stronger (since Jan 26 I made almost 20% on AAPL stocks), but after a person was on the verge of death, his values were changing and Steve might have decided to just do what he really wanted especially having $4B in the wallet.

Adobe ‘s CTO remains polite, but states that iPhone is not the only multi-touch device and CS5 will be a valuable tool for many developers for various smart phones.

But what do they hate Java and C# for? I don ‘t know.

Apple also seems to be afraid of people who are using the approved API but do it better than their own developers.

Side Bar

I like Apples products a lot. My family likes them too. Two of my sons and I use MacBooks. Each person has an iPod. Last Saturday I bought an iPad, and it delivers great experience.

Last month I wanted to sleep with iPad and I did it. And it was good. When I posted this photo on Twitter I got the following response from @schmidtkevinall “Are you sure your MBP didn ‘t sleep with your iPhone and produce that iPad? rdquo; And it was good.

iPad is much more superior to iPhone. It “s large, it “s fast, it “s long lasting. It just doesn “t make calls, but calling iPhone a phone is also an exaggeration, if you know what I mean. It lets me spending a little more time in bed checking emails keeping it on my belly. I eat breakfast with iPad ndash; my son Dave came up with a nice idea of a free iPad stand.

What I don “t like about iPad is that my wife took it yesterday to show her colleagues at work and “forgot rdquo; to take it out of her bag when came home. I have a feeling that she wants us to get used to the fact that it “s her toy now.

As a matter of fact, iPad is the best gadget for non-geeks, including your parents and grandparents. They “ll love it!

One of my readers sent me an email with a detailed comparison of features of his Sony Vaio and iPad explaining why it make a lot more sense to buy a decent laptop than an iPad. What a baloney!

Comparing technical sheets of iPad and a powerful laptop is like comparing technical features of the elite escort girl and a good loving wife.

A tried and true loving wife can do many different things, while that escort girl can do just a couple but how! Ask Eliot Spitzer.

The good news is that the word cheating is not applicable here. You can use a good laptop and an iPad at the same time.

Conclusion

Today, iPad is the only whore in town. Ok, make it two: iPhone and iPad. But guess what, every whore becomes old at some point. Android and Win7 mobile have entered the turnpike already, and they are moving really fast. HP Slate is coming closer too hellip; Let “s welcome them. The more the merrier!

I got it yesterday at 5PM. The Apple store at the nearby mall was crowded, but at the end of day there were more people in blue shorts (I was told that there were a 100 of them) than customers. The salesman immediately showed me a shelf with nice looking iPad jackets-turn-into-ipad-stand for only $39.

Needless to say that many people left broke after shelling out five or six hundred bucks for something they unconditionally loved for a least two months without knowing what for. I didn ‘t buy that $39-thingy. My son David immediately found a decent replacement for it.

If you ‘re broke but have 2 min to watch (if you don ‘t have money, you ‘d better have some time), here ‘s a short instructional video.

Sun.com has asked me a number of questions and published my answers over here. Due to space limitations a couple of my answers didn ‘t make it to that post. Here are the bonus tracks:

JSC: Can you identify any important differences between American and Russian developers?

Fain: I can just give you my opinion based on my personal experience. American developers are more motivated. They are success oriented and have mortgages and car loans to pay. They value their jobs and work hard to keep the paycheck coming. Lack of motivation is one of the major issues in Russia.

Another major difference is that American software developers accept the fact that their project managers are ultimately responsible for success of the project. The manager “s word to not use some technology is usually well taken. Some of the Russian developers strongly believe they know better how to develop the application, can get carried away trying “to do better for the project rdquo;. This can lead to failed deadlines. If you have such a bad egg in your project team, the chances are slim that you “ll be able to change his attitude.

Having said that, I also admit that there are excellent software engineers in the former Soviet Union and we are gladly work with them in our company.

JSC: You have begun experimenting with JavaFX,and even re-used the existing back end of the Java Pet store, and performed a little facelift by replacing the UI developed with AJAX/JSP/JavaServer Faces with one using JavaFX 1.0. Tell us about your impression of JavaFX.

Fain:

I ‘ve been following the process of creation of JavaFX during the last couple of years. Sun always had great software engineers and the JavaFX team was not an exception. But I had a feeling that this group didn ‘t have enough support from Sun ‘s top management.

About a year ago I tried to create the Pet Store with JavaFX 1.0. Back than it was not an easy job. There were no decent library of UI components, even such simple thing as a hyperlink control was not there. You ‘d need to manually create a wrappers for Swing components. Deploying with applets was not working for me. I had to use Web Start with scary security messages. Since you asked this question, I decided to revisit the page javafx.com. It laquo;greeted raquo; me with a warning that laquo;an applet dl.javafx.com is requesting unrestricted access to your computer. raquo; I pressed the button laquo;Deny raquo;. To make the story short, I put JavaFX aside till better times.

It doesn “t take a rocket scientist to notice a serious decline in printing of computer books let alone computer magazines. I enjoy reading books on software and visit the nearby Barnes and Noble book store at least twice a month. During the last three years the number of book cases that display computer books substantially shrank.

Today, newly baked programmers prefer Google to books. They don “t realize that Google is OK when you know what you are looking for, while books can give you a new perspective on what you are planning to do.

Publishers don “t want to print books that no one wants to buy. But today I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

During my today “s visit to B amp;N I noticed a series of book on the shelf on digital photography. I “m one of the legions of people who are thinking of replacing a point-and-shoot camera with a digital SLR like Nikon D90. There were about ten different thin books on that shelf, and I picked D90 one. It was about 65 pages thin. I quickly skimmed through the pages learning that comparing to a pocket camera one of the main advantages of D-SLR is the ability to change lenses. On top of that, these cameras use a small mirror that allows you to see exactly what you “re shooting plus you can make more shoots per second. Not much information for a $25 book.

Than, I picked a similar looking book about more expensive camera – Nikon D300. Boy, was I surprised! This book had the same text as the D90 one. The same intro to what “s D-SLR, the same sample photos. The only difference I noted was the picture of the camera itself plus a couple of pages showing a little bit different controls.

Why literally the same books have different titles? Wouldn “t it make sense to publish one book for D90 and D300 highlighting the difference in several pages? Nope. The secret was that each book came with a DVD, which contained 80 minutes of instructional videos! Here we go! The printed part of the book didn “t really matter. It was a compliment to a video that apparently would teach you specifics of the camera you “ve chosen.

See where I “m going?

The new generation of computer programmers doesn “t want to read either. They want to watch a mooovie. It can be a Youtube video on how to do something, it can be a screencast. The material has to be consumed as easy as possible.

But since not everything in software can be videotaped, the next generation of computer books will still include a couple of hundred pages. Maybe some code samples and short instructions should go there.

Remember those 1500-page Bibles on software? I declare them officially dead. 1000 pages? Dead. New generation of programmers suffers from ADD and short attention span.

From now on, a 500-page book is called THICK. Five years from now, 200-page software book will become a de-facto standard. But they will come with DVD “s where the authors click through all examples that were mentioned on paper.

Wiley Publishing has come up with a series of books called “24-hour trainer rdquo;.

It “s not the same idea as “C++ in 24 hours rdquo;. I guess, they meant to say that you “re buying a trainer that “s with you 24 hours a day. Each book is a set of short lessons with an instructional DVD. My hat off to Wiley who figured out the trend even sooner then O “Reilly! Welcome to the future!

Adobe has announced that they made a deal with Google: the new releases of Chrome Web browser will be packaged with the latest version of Flash Player. Even though the only person I know who uses Chrome is my younger son (he just says it ‘s cool), this is an important announcement.

When I say that Flash Player is a great VM and an excellent choice for delivering rich Internet applications, thousands listen. But when Google makes a commitment to make Flash Player a part of its browser it has even more weight. Google states loud and clear that Flash Player is a valid software that can and should be used.

All these Youtube-raised boys and girls voices stating that HTML5 will kill Flash Player can ‘t be taken seriously for many years to come given the historically slow evolution and adoption of previous versions of HTML. I can see Silverlight (also a VM supported by a real vendor) to start competing with Flash Player in 2011 in the RIA space, but not HTML5.Check out this video comparing performance of Flash Player 10.1 and HTML5.

I ‘m sure, after hearing about this Google/Adobe announcement Apple won ‘t immediately allow Flash Player on SOS (Steve OS), but the statements like Flash Player overloads our 1Ghz CPU and drains the battery will sound as a joke as more and more Google ‘s phones will hit the market. Steve Jobs will surrender. The sooner the better or I ‘ll sell my shares of AAPL, which so far are doing great.

Our new book “Enterprise Development with Flex ” made the Amazon bestseller ‘s list of … Java books:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/3608/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_3_4_last

This list is refreshed every hour so I ‘m not sure what place you are going to find it at, but at the time of this writing it ‘s #20.

Help us to move up the list by doing you know what 🙂