The proclamation from Steve Jobs that the iPhone will not support the Flash Player, either in it's full desktop player form or Flash Lite, has led many to examine the motivations behind Apple's stance.

Personally, I think this is all just saber-rattling. The most compelling argument I've seen thus far - on why Apple doesn't want Flash on the iPhone - has nothing to do with the security of the Flash player or it's robustness on a mobile platform. Apple wants to control and protect the development channels on the iPhone. They want a say in who builds applications and what those applications are. Furthermore, they have no interest in proliferating the Flash Player's reach within the mobile and devices space. That wouldn't help the advancement of Silverlight at all now would it?

For more on this topic see the links below (posted in no particular order).

CNN's coverage (w/ comment from Ryan Stewart):
http://tinyurl.com/2nxrap

Marketwatch's coverage:
http://tinyurl.com/2zhuwk

Robert Scoble on Apple/Job's declaration of no Flash on iPhone:
http://scobleizer.com/2008/03/05/apple-stabs-adobe-in-the-back/

John Gruber on this topic (more detail on Apple protecting the iPhone dev environment):
http://daringfireball.net/2008/02/flash_iphone_calculus

Ryan Stewart says the Flash Player is coming to iPhone (background info only):
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=241

Larry Dignan on Apple vs. Adobe iPhone Spat (background info only):
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8061

Robert Hall pointed me to this site, which shows great use of Flash and video mixed together. It's a Motorola site demonstrating how their products can be used to to manage emergency situations in a big city. Not only is the site built with Flash and video, but there are 3D elements as well. It's all pretty amazing.

If you sit on the site for a while, the city begins to animate with traffic, clouds, and even a bit of industrial pollution (big wtf on that one). Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

http://business.motorola.com/publicsafety/secondnature/site.html

http://www.30onair.com/
Ted Patrick blogs the project

Ben Forta's Flex 3 / AIR pre-release tour has already begun and the Nashville stop on the US portion of the tour is this week. Any Flash, Flex, AIR, or ColdFusion developers are encouraged to come to the event and learn more about the next major release of Flex and the new Adobe Integrated Runtime product release.

Attendees are encouraged to register for the event so we can plan appropriately for the number of folks coming. Registering will also enter you into the drawings for Flex 3 (prize awarded when Flex 3 is launched), some cool Flex/AIR schwag, an iPod Nano, and 4 iPod Shuffles.

Subs, pizza, cokes and beer will be provided. All you have to do is show up! Considering the excellent speaker, fantastic product information, and free food and goodies, you'd be crazy to miss this event.

This morning I sat down at my desk, opened up my MacBook Pro and started my day; with a cup of coffee mind you. After checking e-mail I decided to plug in my Iomega hard-drive in order to initiate a backup of my system using Apple's Time Machine. It hadn't been long since I backed up so Time Machine had very little to synchronize with the external hard-drive. During the 2-3 minute sync my CPU - a 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo beast - sky-rocketed to 100% CPU utilization. In fact, when looking at Activity Monitor, Safari reported it was using over 110% of available CPU power. Huh? While sitting baffled, Time Machine finished its task and shut down. CPU remained pegged for another 2-3 minutes as I monitored Activity Monitor. The entire time I was watching the culprit was Safari. All other applications were either idle or using a very small amount of CPU.

Wondering what in the world Safari 3 could be doing to require so much juice I quickly strolled over to the Space (you use Spaces on Leopard right?) occupying the browser. The tab immediately visible was Seesmic.com. I created a Seesmic account yesterday after receiving an invite from Critter, and had been watching several recent user videos. On a whim, I closed the Seesmic tab, switched back to Activity Monitor and waited. About 6 seconds later CPU returned to normal.

The conclusion: Something on Seesmic caused my browser, as a client to the Web site, to need way more resources than normal. Given Seesmic is built very heavily on Flash technology and utilizes the Flash Player in the browser, I'm guessing my problem began in the player. The Flash Player, as awesome as it is, has a tendency to run away with the CPU on occasion. During my 7 years of developing software for the Flash player I've seen it happen dozens of times. In some cases it was programmer error; writing bad code (typically loops or errant Object/MovieClip creation). In other cases, the Flash Player seemed to leak memory on it's own until it was shut down (typically requiring an entire restart of the browser).

I don't know what caused the problem on Seesmic, and I guess there's a slight chance it had nothing to do with Seesmic. Nevertheless, their huge use of Flash video technology - and the amount of resources on the client needed to consume the video - could've been part of the problem. Who knows whether the issue could've been resolved by the Flash developers or whether it was just a problem with Flash Player 9. The site is still in very early alpha release, so I'm expecting things to get much more buttoned up.

Go bag, man sack, man purse, whatever you want to call it, I first got the idea to post what I carry around day-to-day from the Lifehacker site. That was several months ago, and now that I've received my new Flash on the Beach TimBuk2 bag (thanks Ted!), I decided to reveal the contents of my bag.

1. TimBuk2 "Flash on the Beach" speaker bag. I won this bag in a charity eBay auction by Ted Patrick (Adobe Flex Evangelist)
2. Halls cough drops (it's winter you know)
3. Giorgio Armani glasses case
4. Flask Andy Matthews gave me
5. 5th Generation iPod (Black iPod Video)
6. Truck keys (for my 2005 Nissan Titan)
7. MacBook Pro Front Row remote
8. Hacked Mont Blanc pen (see this for details)
9. SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2 GB USB drive
10. Head phone adapter for the Treo 700p
11. Treo 700p USB cable
12. Treo 700p Smartphone
13. Generic iPod headphones (backup pair)
14. Tommy Hilfiger business card wallet
15. Double headphone jack for 2 person listening
16. Extra Treo stylus (w/ built-in pen)
17. Logitech VX Revolution wireless mouse (best mouse ever)
18. Apple iPhone (best phone ever)
19. iPhone USB cable
20. VGA to DVI adapter for presenting from MacBook Pro's
21. Wi-Fi Spy wireless network detector
22. AT&T USB AIR card
23. Jawbone Bluetooth headset (best headset ever)
24. iPhone-specific headphones with pause and track advance button
25. Latest issue of Wired magazine
26. MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz proc, 4 GB RAM (work computer)
27. MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz proc, 4 GB RAM (personal computer)

Not pictured:
I typically carry a power adapter for my laptop, but with 2 laptops now I keep power adapters at work and at home.

Adobe announces the latest version of Flash Media Server today.

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the Adobe Flash Media Server 3 family of products, which offers streaming media and real-time communication capabilities to the broadest possible audience. With industry standard H.264 video capabilities and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, Adobe Flash Media Server 3 provides content owners with increased protection for streaming high quality video and allows for the delivery of interactive media applications that work consistently across multiple browsers and operating systems. Adobe Flash Media Server 3 provides a more efficient instant-on video experience virtually anytime, anywhere - to the Web, the desktop with Adobe Media Player and to mobile devices with Adobe Flash Lite 3. With new pricing options, customers have a wide array of choices for the broadcasting of high quality streaming media experiences.

The full press release is here. For specific product related information, visit the Flash Media Server product page.

I just got word from Neil that Feed Squirrel just went live on ColdFusion 8. If you're not familiar with alternative (to MXNA) aggregators like Feed Squirrel, you should be. Why not give it a whirl?

http://feed-squirrel.com/

Adobe's been working on a desktop media player - code-named "Philo" - which is slated to be one of their first released Apollo applications. The media player will be free and is designed to bring online video content (FLV) to the desktop. How did I not know this was in the works? For consumers, the Adobe Media Player will bring video streaming and management for Internet TV and video podcasts. You'll be able to mark your favorites for automatic download, create playlists and tags for videos in your library, and rate your videos. Double-clicking Flash videos will cause them to play inside the media player.

For advertisers and content firms the Adobe Media Player brings content branding in the form of media player backgrounds and badges, banner ad delivery, usage statistics reporting, video usage protection, and syndication via media RSS - where FLV's are tagged as enclosures to RSS feeds.

The Adobe Media Player is not slated to release until sometime in 2007 after the official release of Apollo. However, you can read more about it and view a screenshot by clicking the link below.

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Media_Player

The folks at Cerulean Studios are working on the next release of Trillian, version 4, code-named Astra. But there's always new IM software being released, is Trillian Astra more fluff or the right stuff?

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I have a huge affinity for timepieces (watches to the layman). Several years ago I started looking at buying a Rolex so I visited their Web site. After tremendous amounts of research and buying a Rolex Sea-Dweller I haven't visited the site much. The previous site worked well enough but it always seemed cumbersome and slow on my Powerbook G4 in Safari and Firefox. The screen transitions would take quite a while and sometimes not even work. Several times I would have to refresh the entire site and advance through menu options again. After hearing about the redesign I paid the site a visit. It's always contained some stunning photography but the new site is definitely an improvement. The site is designed to detect whether your browser supports JavaScript, Flash, and CSS and whether you have them turned on or off. I disabled JavaScript using the Web Developers plugin for Firefox and received a non-Flash experience. However, the site developers were successful in offering an alternative browsing experience without degrading quality. The images are still stunning and the site - for the most part - looks exactly the same.

For such an amazing and timeless product, the Rolex site delivers and equally amazing Web site. My only complaint is the Sea-Dweller not being part of the Extraordinary Watches section. The Sea-Dweller includes all the technical marvels of the Oyster Perpetual movement with the additional ability to be submerged to 1,220 meters (4,000 feet). Also included are the Oyster fliplock bracelet (allowing the piece to be worn over a wet suit) and the helium gas escape valve (necessary for those spending time in a helium-enriched underwater habitat). These technial feats, which are unmatched by any other timepiece, should justify its placement in the Extraordinary Watches category.