Oscar Trelles

Thanks to the couple of persons that asked Yes, I’m pretty much alive, but extremely busy at work. We have several projects running at the same time, which means that things are getting better in the industry, which is good for everyone.

So, I’m sure I will be updating the site soon enough. As a matter of fact, I’m in the process of updating the FAQs for the Bytes-based Preloaders. I’ve been unable to answer individually to many messages I received regarding the Preloaders, and for that I apologize. But given that many of the messages ask pretty much the same questions I figured I would make the information available to everybody, though I will try and send personalized answers to particular problems. Updates to the Preloaders? not any time soon.

Another thing is that I’m ready to move this site to my own server, along with some client stuff. So, I’ll be working on this later today or tomorrow, and wait for DNS propagation during the weekend while I finish my notes for MXDU! If you didn’t know already, I will be presenting on Flash applications and dynamic data.

Well, that’s all for now, I have to get back to work!

I was publishing this as a personal entry, but I thought I would share instead, just in case, even if this is off-topic and very particular. So, if you have a 15″ laptop and a Kyocera 7135 smartphone, this is the bag you need.

Ever since I got this nice Kyocera 7135, I haven’t been able to make it fit in the pockets provided on most laptop cases. Every bag I’ve seen have pockets for both your phone and your handheld computer, but what if you have both of them in a single gadget?

Suffer no more, Samsonite has the solution on its L35 notebook case model. The pocket for the phone fits precisely my Kyocera 7135, and yet will hold any other phone model out there. It also has a bigger pocket which is supposed to hold a handheld computer, but its big enough to fit my laptop’s battery charger.

Sorry for the off-topic, but I’m very happy with this acquisition. You will get the best price for this item on Buy.com

A couple of days ago, my friend Christopher refreshed an old post of mine, where I reported how frustrated I was due to Flash’s constant crashes and misbehaviors, and he offers some more insight on his own experience. In the other hand, Scott Barnes feels that the Community is being too tough with Flash and Macromedia’s Flash Team, given some harsh comments and campaigns of sorts out there. But let’s not forget: the issues are real.

First of all, I don’t think the Community exists to negate or pretend to hide problems in the software, but rather provide all the feedback we can to help Macromedia fix the bugs. If someone’s comments are a little harsh some times, it is not because we hate the ‘Flash Team’ (after all, they just follow business directives) it is because we are also customers, we paid for our software and we expect it to work appropriately. Ultimately, the Community has to be independent to serve its purpose.

I wasn’t in the beta, but the word out there is that many of the problems we are experiencing now were already spotted during the beta. So, the fact that Flash MX 2004 was released in a hurry appears to be the reason of all our issues with the product today. Even Scott acknowledges that, but I would like to know how would you react if you were served a half-baked pizza. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it, and most probably would never come back again.

So, it’s been months since the release on Flash MX 2004 and we are still waiting for fixes for all the bugs the Community has been reporting. Yet, we still support Flash and want it to get better, we can’t afford restarting our computer everytime Flash crashes, or closing Flash to be able to use other applications…

Sleek design and an innovative navigational structure. This korean design studio uses an unconventional method to allow browsing through their portfolio: you need to drag and resize the display box. Not only that, they teach you how to do it before letting you in. I think that’s important, and that’s what I want to highlight today.

At this point, we have seem lots of attempts of innovative navigation and UIs everywhere, few of them really successful. A few weeks ago, we were discussing here about this very same subject: the best way to introduce innovative concepts on user interfaces. Since then, I’ve found two things that can really make the difference:

- Place traditional methods along with the new ones.
- Instruct the users on how to user your methods.

The later is nicely implemented in Nutility’s web site. The ‘educational’ process is long enough to show you exactly what you need to do in order to manipulate the proposed navigational system, and short enough not to make it boring. Great example.

*** Intended for Mature Audiences only ***

Not work-safe, unless you work were I do… hehe:
Total nudity: Well, if you’re good enough It takes some practice.

Strip that Girl

The people involved in the development of the current Macromedia.com have had a great deal of success producing an engaging experience, using a balanced mix of Macromedia’s technologies to show the world what their products can do. However, and despite some skewed reviews like the one pointed out by CFGigolo in this blog post (in portuguese), there are still things that need to be improved.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I would use Google instead of diving into Macromedia’s collections of Technotes. I usually will end up in a Technote, but saving the time (and confusion) of attempting to use the Technotes index and search. This is specially true for ColdFusion related documents; there are many orphan Technotes, meaning that you won’t find them in the Coldfusion Technotes index. Funny thing, the Flash Technotes index is buried in the site, and is not accessible from the Flash Support homepage (or I just couldn’t find the link).

The other big problem with the Technotes is their organization. Why are they divided by subject instead of product version? When you need information, it is about a particular version of the product, that’s for sure.

I have to second CFGigolo when he says that one would think Harley Manning, the author of that report for Forrester, “never needed to use Macromedia’s support pages”.

The year starts with an active discussion over requested features for the next version of Central. Although some of us were taking for granted the inclusion of FP7 features in the Central player, it seems like accessing the local file system is the most requested feature, as Mike Chambers reports on his blog. So, what about Internet connection awareness?

When I first learned about Central, it was being tightly tied to the concept of Occasionally Connected Computing (OCC). So, I was a bit disappointed during the beta when I learned that Central wasn’t as ‘smart’ as I expected it to be regarding Internet connection awareness. I don’t know about you, but when I shared my thoughts on this people seemed to have the same reaction, but waited to say anything else until we had an official release.

Now that we are talking about the next version of Central, I’m surprised nobody mentions this matter. We, developers, are almost always able to find our way around obstacles like this one, but I’m pretty sure end-users are not as forgiving, and they would expect a ‘smarter’ behavior from Central after all they’ve heard/read.

Personally, I would put put this at the top of my list of request for the next version of Central, followed by everything else mentioned by others, including localization… but that’s another story.