Category: Computing

The ups and downs of working with computers

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Computing Marketing

Are Netbooks really dead?

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Acer is sticking by netbooks.
Samsung is not.
So who’s making a mistake? Did tablets kill the netbook?

Tablets are certainly on fire right now. Not tablets per se, the iPad that is.
Kids want tablets and parents agree, as they are spreading light wildfire in the enterprise. It seems like Steve Jobs managed to invent an entirely new computing and entertainment category based on early failures of others. Again.

While you can attach keyboards and stands to tablets, seed entire accessory ecosystems, tablets remain content consumption tools. The can attach themselves to other devices as controllers and rich user interfaces – a future I am truly stoked about. But writing serious documents, creating stuff – they are not ideal. To create, a keyboard, a real keyboard, seems to still be a necessity.

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Computing ios iphone mobile

Why keep HTML5 open when you can make it proprietary?

Say what you will, this is pretty cool – at least at the idea level: a specialized, HTML5 web browser for mobile devices that provides special hooks for HTML5 apps granting them access to native device features. Pretty nifty, right? Naturally the people who control the platform, kinda get to decide what can and cannot run, maybe get a cut of the action for the business that they are generating for you and for the work that they invested in making and marketing the app.

In exchange for openness, you get cool features (especially for games) and capabilities you otherwise will not be able to provide. Tradeoffs tradeoffs. Still, pretty darn cool.

mobiUs … the world’s first HTML5 Web App browser.

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Computing General Web Development

Flash vs. HTML5: When clients ask you to take sides in a holy war

Recently, a client asked me and my colleagues for a point of view on whether they should develop a profoundly animated website in Flash or go with HTML5. I love HTML5. I worked in Flash in the bad old days and was not a fan. I love HTML5. I even have the sticker on my laptop.

This is naturally prep for a big but.
It comes in the form of the list we shared with our client.
Look at it as a conversation starter. Be nice.

 

  • SEO – Flash and HTML5 are both not ideal for SEO (Canvas and SVG are not textual and hence indexable) 
  • Performance depends on what we need to achieve; complex HTML5 is as slow as complex Flash
  • Creative Liberty – Flash can accomplish more, in less time than HTML5
  • Build time – Flash development, on more browsers, will require less time *for the same thing* – assuming a lot of animation and interactivity
  • Browser Compatibility – HTML5 pretty much cannot work on browsers older than 2 years; Flash still works on the older Internet Explorer browsers that too many people still use. And we have to care about them.

This list is VERY MUCH for the present time. Things change fast and HTML5 is gaining a foothold faster than Flash is losing it. 

Still, right now, it's what I believe. Flash had to be the way to go. Sounds apologetic, no?

OH – and we ARE building an HTML5 mobile + tablet version of the same site. Mobile web vs. native apps – now that's a holy war I do take sides on.

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