At the tender age of 30 I’m starting to mature. If you’re going to use (or I’m going to use) Adobe Flash, you better make something that’s really good, gets to the point, works great and loads quickly.
Buzzword is a good example.
Buzzword is a new product/site where you can do word processing. It’s Adobe’s version of Google Docs, but built within what appears to be a tight Flex GUI. It has a simple core set of features to do basic word processing, formatting and adding comments to your documents. You can also save drafts of your docs within your account.
This is just the beginning people, welcome to the world of online applications.

So on Monday Google announced Android, which is comprised of itself and 33 other companies with the goal of developing an ‘open’ mobile platform.
Do we get to see examples? Nope. Prototypes? Nope.
In short, like many people, I’m calling bullshit on this one. Somehow, people think closed systems are a bad thing. This is far from true. Far.
Actually, let me be more specific – it all depends on the context. Depending on who is developing the system (read: software, programming language, OS or plug-in) and how broad or narrow the scope is (anyone can develop in HTML and Javascript), making a closed system can be very smart.
I will save my thoughts on open/closed systems for another, longer post. In the meantime, here are some great articles on this whole Android shizzle:
Fake Steve: ‘It’s Not a Phone, It’s an Alliance’

Companies don’t form alliances and consortia when they’re winning. Also, whenever you see companies start talking about being “open,” it means they’re getting their ass kicked. You think Google will be forming an OpenSearch alliance any time soon, to help also-rans in search get a share of the spoils? Me neither.

Derek Powazek: Google Now in Vaporware Business? (via Daring Fireball)

Why is Design nested within the Technology category on Digg?

I flew to LA recently, and as we were waiting to take off, I noticed some interesting bootup screens on the monitors. Apparently Delta uses Linux:

A Study We Can Relate To: Millions Shop Online During Conference Calls
Well duh.
BlackBerry sales unfazed by iPhone – This doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Blackberries are the de facto mobile device for a lot of business people. In much the same way that Zune sales are effecting iPod competitors and not iPods, iPhone sales are effecting Blackberry competitors, not RIM’s Blackberry. I wish people would stop trying to create rivalries where none exist. The Blackberry and the iPhone are 2 totally different products with different target demographics. Saying “BlackBerry sales unfazed by iPhone” is like saying. “Toyota sales unfazed by Mercedes”.
Brian Romero – Cartoons Illustration Design Mayhem (via AisleOne)

A Joyful Reunion, Full of Wide Smiles and High Kicks

During Van Halen’s years with Mr. Roth, it was a group of guys in their late 20s and early 30s who were, with a streak of trouper’s irony from Mr. Roth, amping up the teenage hormonal urges of songs like “Hot for Teacher.” Now they are guys in their 50s reviving the heyday of guys in their 20s who were thinking like teenagers.
Then and now, it’s done with virtuosity.

In the Dark with Kurt Cobain
from the article:

Azerrad caught his subject at a rather poignant moment. Frances Bean had just been born, grunge was a juggernaut, and Kurt was contemplative, candid, and lucid—able to reflect on the factors that would inevitably kill him. “Drugs are bad for you, and they will fuck you up. I just knew that I would eventually stop doing them. Being married and having a baby is a really good incentive,” Kurt says late in the film. “If I would’ve kept doing drugs, I would have lost everything.” This line is truly devastating. Likewise when Azerrad asks, “Is yours a sad story?” “No, not really,” Kurt responds. “It’s nothing that’s amazing or anything new, for sure.”

Most people are aware by this point that Microsoft has released their Flash competitor, Silverlight.
The problem I have with Silverlight is that I can’t find any good examples of websites or other interactive demos (other than the kick-ass ones Schematic has created).
Can anyone point me in the direction of Silverlight examples that aren’t video players? The examples that they show on Silverlight.net are horrendous and basically reinforce the fact that Microsoft is a company driving technology for technology’s sake – they don’t care about good Design (capital ‘D’), they’re technocrats.
Microsoft is trying to play catch up, but they don’t seem to care about the end user and designing experiences or applications that will benefit them. We’re also seeing this echoed their other ‘later runner’ products like Zune and Windows Vista (people are actually opting to downgrade back to Windows XP). Everything seems to be a day late and a dollar short.
Should we care about Silverlight? If so why?
Why should I as a interactive designer use Microsoft Blend over Adobe Flash? (ignore the fact that I’m on OS X)
In industry where Adobe Flash dominates online video and rich interactive applications (Youtube wouldn’t exist without Flash video) and designers and developers work well with the application – what is Microsoft bringing to the table that is innovative?
I think its important to open up discussion on topics like this instead of blindly accepting new technologies.
Have comments? Post em below.

Man, what a great video:

I spend a lot of time online. Even as I work during the day in my design applications, I’m constantly checking my NewsFire RSS application for news. Despite great simplicity of RSS feeds, the NYTimes.com has many features that you can only take advantage of by going to the actual site.
The NYTimes.com really seems to ‘get’ the internet way better than most other news and newspaper sites. The site is well-designed, and by this I mean the underlying structure of the site, where things are positioned, image/text relationships, proportions and information heirarchy.
The style of the site is equally beautiful. The style of the site includes the color palette, grid treatment (the Times chose to expose most of their grid), fonts and photography.
Here’s a few gems I came across this morning:

Making the Cover


Records From a History of Hardship


Behind the Facades

A big round of applause to Schematic LA for their great work on the new Schematic website.
It’s in Flash 9, written in AS3, supports browser history (and back button), its friendly with mobile browsers, and search engine optimized. We even have a new showreel included. It’s got a few kinks in it, so if you see something funky, let them know by clicking on the BETA button on the homepage.
Go team!

There’s been some good ha-ha’s this last month:
iTunes Store To Stop Selling NBC Television Shows – hahaha!
so NBC responds:
NBC ‘DISAPPOINTED’ IN NOT NEGOTIATING NEW ITUNES PACT – hahaha!
and NBC reacts:
After ditching Apple, NBC opts for flex pricing and more DRM with Amazon – HAHAHA! Stop, NBC, you’re killing me!
And on the Sony front:
Sony pulls the plug on Connect, refocuses on PlayStation – Now this is sad. I was really digging that Sony ATRAC music format. Wait, no I wasn’t, and I also wasn’t digging the mini disc format.

It’s absurd to think that the iPhone would stay ‘locked’ with AT&T service.
If we’ve learned anything from copy-protecting on music and DVD’s, its that technology wants to be free. It’s an inherent part of the medium.
If something can be encrypted, then it can be decrypted. Knowledge is always flowing 2 directions (or more).
Apple knew this with iTunes and they knew it just as well with iPhone. Lock-in schemes like this were insisted upon by Apple’s partners – not by Apple itself. Apple could give 2 shits if their music has DRM encoded on it, or if their phones only work on AT&T’s networks.
The mobile phone industry in the United States is absurd and their business models have to be taken down and Apple has made the first moves in making this a reality by working the iPhone into their iTunes ecosystem.
This is echoed in this statement by RIM’s CEO (via MacNN):
“It’s a dangerous strategy. It’s a tremendous amount of control,” he says. “And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”
I want to see Blackberry and Palm step up to the plate and offer up some serious competition to the iPhone. In order to do this, though, they have to heed to design. They have to build an experience and not worry so much about features.

Dear Palm: It’s time for an intervention – my sentiments exactly. I love my Treo. I also love my Nintendo – but that doesn’t mean it can compete with a PS3.
Migrating from AS2 to AS3 – a great breakdown of the differences in syntax between AS2 & AS3. After reading this entry, it’s not as bad as I thought but I still have a A LOT of catching up to do.
On a contrary note, here’s a great post by Joshua Davis on using Actionscript 1.0. Yes, I said Actionscript 1.0!

By the way my site was down this week, you would have thought I was hosting it in my backyard on a 10-year-old Windows 3.x machine, mounted on cinder blocks and piping through a 28.8 modem.
Unfortunately, I’m actually paying for hosting my site as well as some clients.
I apologize for the downtime.
I should have new hosting by next month.