Don’t get me wrong, “I come not to burry Flash,” Flash is fantastic, for what it was originally designed for, vector based animation, but when Macromedia (it’s original vendor) took aim at making it a replacement for core web technologies that’s when the rot set in and I got the hump. Not sure of the version but it was probably around Flash MX when they introduced forms that I started to question what they were doing. From that point on, as they moved away from the original core of ultra light vector based animation, a lot of the “innovations” were just bloat-ware that compounded the well known memory leaks and other problems that have plagued the Flash player over the years. These additions seemed primarily designed to maintain relevance or to pander to a market of point-and-click developers who did not know or care about Flash’s raison d’être (or know what raison d’être means). A lot of bad Flash animations / applications have been produced, simply because they could be. I know this because I was often the one called in to fix them after the horse had bolted.

Flash’s departure from the mobile web space is not solely due to its vendor not being able to keep its hands to itself. The other major driving factor and part of Adobe’s reasoning, is that other open standards web technologies have come along in leaps and bounds eroding Flash’s relevance. HTML5 and a plethora of JavaScript libraries / frameworks like jQuery, Prototype and Ext JS have come along and filled in some of the gaps that Flash coveted particularly in the mobile web space thanks to mobile browsers being more up-to-date then some of their desktop cousins. The main point of difference between Flash and the invading benevolent hordes is that they are generally open standards bases, accessible and don’t require any plug-ins.

So we say a fond farewell to Flash from the mobile web space and wish it well doing what it has always done best; creating clever, engaging, animation based games etc. for the desktop environment.

The Astor is 76 years old and one of few big screen art-house cinemas left in Melbourne in almost original condition. It’s screen and projector have been seriously upgraded recently and the large screen is crystal clear – you can see the makeup on Michael J Fox’s pimples very clearly.

Anyway the trilogy now continues – first time since there release that they have been screened together.

Follow-up research probably concluded that black is indeed black and white is not.

I’m not so sure about the idea that creativity can be taught, but, I will agree that businesses, whilst craving innovation, tend not to reward and often discourages, or worse, admonishes creativity.

That having been said; get a group of employees into a “safe room” and let them freely riff about the business, products, staff picnic or just about anything and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at what they come up with and who comes up with it.

• Open Firefox and type about:config into the address bar and hit enter
• Accept that you are responsible if you bugger things up (N.B. that’s you not me).
• Find or search for “browser.urlbar.trimURLs” (without the quotes) and set it to false by double-clicking on it.

You should now be httappy once more.

Set browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false in Firefox 7

Apple have hidden the Library folder in Lion just in case any newbies might try and do something silly with it. Not being a noob and wanting to do something silly with it – see it in Finder – I Googled up the answer. Thanks to those that went before me.

Open terminal and issue the following command:

chflags nohidden ~/Library/

You can take simplicity too far you know. Here in Aus. all the power points (wall sockets) have switches on them. Americans are often surprised and confused by this. The switch makes it more complicated (and they work the opposite way to Yank switches). But you know what? They’re safer with switches on them because when they’re switched off you can’t stick stuff in the holes and electrocute yourself and what’s more the electricity can’t leak out and waste money . The moral is – there is simple and then there is idiot proof, or rather, proof of idiots. You’ve probably guessed by now which one I think Lion Server Application is.

Can we please have the old Server Admin Tools back? I promise not to electrocute myself.

The people’s server?! What’s next heir Steve? World domination? Whoops spoke to soon… iPod, iPod über alles, Ãœber alles in der Welt…

Well having read a piece on the new iCab iPad browser in the latest Australian MacWorld I was straight on to the AppStore doing the iOneClick of debt and soon replacing the blue compass with black and yellow checks.

I’ve no idea, at the moment, if iCab is a wrapper or not but it’s certainly no one trick pony either. It took me about half an hour on the train the other day to go through it’s system and in-app settings (if you buy it make sure you do this otherwise all the features will not be apparent). No wonder just take a look at these screen shots.

So what then is a tetra idiom: a manner of speaking in four parts or possibly the painting style of a brightly coloured fish?