Oscar Trelles

Good news is that performance has been improved, not as dramatically as it was previously announced, but enough to be significant. Then again, I been testing the new Flash player almost exclusively against sites with medium complexity levels, meaning that performance improvements could be more notorious with more complex applications. What I already reported though, is some problems with FlashCom applications…

I was trying the FCS chat room over at Flashtrix, and what was happening is that I couldn’t disconnect from the server. Every time I go back, another instance of ‘me’ appears. Furthermore, even if I closed the chat room, I still could hear all the audio streaming! odd…

If you have anything to report, you can go here. Be sure to try every little thing in the applications you already have running.

Keep an eye of these threads at FlashCoders:
Flash Player 7 Public Beta
Get Your Flash 7 Features Here!!!!

The so much rumored and awaited Flash Player X has just been released in public beta by Macromedia. Version 7 of the Flash Player is available in two packages, each of them specific to particular browser groups. Platforms supported at this moment are only Windows and Mac. Be ready to restart your computer…

From what I’ve read so far from the relase notes, the coolest thing in the new player is that it has finally been gifted with the ability to detect the availability of updated versions. So, the current built (7.0.0.249) will notify the user whenever the next public release can be installed. The catch: this mechanism will only work with the web players (players hosted by a web browser), and not with the standalone or debugging players.

I’m sorry if I’m a bit delayed answering emails and comments on the blog. I’m swamped in work right now, and I can’t find a moment for a break. I’ll catch up as soon as possible.

I would find it hard to believe that you haven’t already read anything about FlashPaper. Just in case, there are a couple of links at the end of the posting where you can find out what exactly FlashPaper is. Once you are back, read on.

Early reactions have been to compare it with Adobe’s PDF format. I did. But that simplistic approach is not in my mind anymore. Today I feel that both technologies play different roles, that FlashPaper’s approach to encapsulated document distribution is substantively… different. Four reasons to separate FlashPaper from PDF documents:

1. File size: I think Geoff Bowers was the first one I’ve read bringing document size to the table. SWFs generated by FlashPaper weight considerably less than PDF files. But what about functionality? well, FlashPaper is just that: ‘paper’, a captured print-out of your original document, it cannot be indexed nor searched for keywords, and other stuff that can be done with PDF files.

2. Plug-in: No other rich media plug-in has reached the ubiquity level Flash Player has, says John Dowdell, based on some comparative numbers between plug-ins and the most up-to-date data about Flash Player penetration. In short, more people can see documents generated with FlashPaper without having to download anything. Then, downloading and installing the Flash Player is, in most cases, something that happens in the background and in a matter of seconds. Acrobat reader plug-in is about 5Mb.

3. Distribution: PDFs are great to send documents with email messages. I wouldn’t think the same about sending SWFs… what do you think?

4. Price: Well, you get FlashPaper for free when buying Contribute for $99, you don’t need to be a Flash user. To create PDF files you need at least Acrobat Standard, available from Adobe for $299. Now, that’s a difference we all can agree with.

FlashPaper is still a first version, and as such needs lots of feedback and work to become an established product.

Must reads:
Macromedia FlashPaper printer driver technology
Making Documents Viewable Online with Macromedia FlashPaper

Do you think your employer knows exactly what you do in the organization? do they know about your potential? Does your boss know what to ask from you? I have to ask these questions, because yesterday I had this conversation with my boss:

Lady Boss: Hey Oscar, are you busy?
Oscar: Yeah, but you can interrupt me at any time.
Lady Boss: So, we are going to buy this web site from our competitors... but I think most of it is Flash-based. Do you think you can handle it, or is Flash something you can't work with?
Oscar: ...
Lady Boss: ?

I couldn’t articulate a word, and although I think I didn’t move a muscle on my face, I noticed how her expression changed from ‘confidence’ to ‘what the hell did I say?’ during that couple of seconds…

Oscar: First of all, the first thing you wanted me to do when I came here was to fix and finish some Flash projects left undone by my predecessors. If it was up to me, I would have kept on doing Flash and only Flash.... so it is YOUR fault that I HAD to learn PHP and re-familiarize with UNIX environments to keep the job!! Thank you for that, now I have more value added, but if you are getting more Flash stuff, I WANT IT!

Funny? maybe for you… but I felt like even if we have developed certain level of friendship, she really doesn’t know what kind of work I do. Or maybe is just that she doesn’t know exactly what Flash is

Quick PHP tip. If you ever get a error message line like this one, don’t even bother looking for that ‘$’.

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in /folder/document.php on line 10

What you are probably missing is a closing curly braquet (‘}’) somewhere. I can’t say that I have tested it extensively, but I did confirm this curious error with several postings I found in PHP-related lists and forums.

Macromedia is not alone on its product activation initiative. Since the introduction of product activation with Microsoft’s XP line of products, many other companies have been working on their own approaches to this ‘solution’. Adobe is also testing its product activation schema with the australian version of Photoshop 7. [via eWeek]

Adobe’s approach is hooked to the hard drive’s ID rather than the computer’s, letting the users in liberty of making additions or changes to their hardware configuration, thus avoiding multiple activation requirements. Also, if an attempt of making an illegal installation of the product is detected, the user is not locked out (as it happens with Microsoft’s products) but the software will be only functional for 30 days, time the user has to contact Adobe and solve the issue.

All this initiatives are targeted to stop friend-to-friend software trading or ‘borrowing’, stopping established ‘piracy houses’ is another bussines.

An emergent pattern has come to my attention. In fact, I have been Discussing this with some friends, and it seems like it makes more sense as days pass by, and that’s why I’m writing this now. It has to do with these chops of information supposedly leaking from irresponsible beta testers of Macromedia’s upcoming products.

It looks to me like some people are using these unfortunate events to drive some extra traffic to their sites, taking advantage of people fascinated by the subject… Excuse me if this sounds rude, I’m just sharing a thought here, no harm intended. As you may have read here before, I think this is a matter of respect for confidential information.

Be aware that by linking to sources of unauthorized information, you are promoting its distribution. It doesn’t matter if you claim that it was provided to you anonymously, or that you are not in favor of that kind of disclosures, you are still echoing faulty (and maybe unlawful) statements. Just my 2 cents….

From italian artist Bruno Bozzetto, a film that’s dedicated to those who believe Italians behave the same as all other Europeans

Macromedia reports First Quarter Fiscal Year 2004 Financial Results.

Interesting stuff. Macromedia continues to tie its future to the success of the Flash player as a ubiquitous technology. This means that the company has to do whatever it takes to ensure the Flash player reaches a distribution level that makes developers and clients feel confident enoguh to adopt Flash 6. Then again, as I told somebody attending FlashForward, when the current latest version of the player reaches that level of presence, we will be probably discussing version 7; I hope I’m wrong. macromedia is doing its part by consolidating alliances with media distributors and communications providers.

Furthermore, it seems like Breeze and Breeze Live could have a bright future. Great amounts of presentations (Powerpoint presentations?) have been ported into the Breeze format, said Rob Burgess (CEO, Macromedia), affecting mainly the way companies provide training to their employees. There are more and more products developed with FlashComm, and since it is supporting Breeze Live, we should expect Rich Media Training applications after the product hits the market on August.

More Information:
Press Release.
Breeze Presentation.

Investor Relations Homepage.