F·L·A·S·H·I·S·M

Today I got another update notification for Adobe Flash Player 10.1. The first thing I noticed that the notification looked prettier than the last update. I really hated that ugly Adobe Download Manager or ADM in short. Take a look how it was in previous update:

In installation process, ADM was downloaded first which was almost the same download size of the Flash Player itself, so I don’t get why Adobe used it in the first place. If it supports resume-able downloads, then Adobe should only use it for downloading trial versions of Adobe CS products.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 Update

This new version features better hardware acceleration, multi-touch and gestures, private browsing support and as always enhanced performance and memory management. Read more here.

I am happy that Adobe now have switched back to better and tiny (only ~2.8MB total) installer. The update notification included summary about what new features it offers and links for more details.

The only thing which I’ve been asking Adobe to put in these update dialogs is complete version numbers of the currently installed Flash Player, and new version. So the user could know what exact version he is upgrading to.

The overall Flash Player update experience was great this time. Excellent job Adobe!

// chall3ng3r //

Well, it seems quite late to ask this…again, but I’d like to know why?

This update of Adobe Flash Player is huge, and is also the first version from Open Screen Project. It’s super fast, it’s mobile optimized, it’s multi-touch enabled, it’s everything Flash Player 10.0 was not.

I don’t see a reason why Adobe don’t want to call it version 11.0? Anyone else want to know or maybe know why?

Update: I already went through Emmy’s post regarding version numbering. I just think this is a major update, so the change in version number should be major?

// chall3ng3r //

It’s not just me who is stuck on really crappy ISP. I know there are millions of users like me around the world

I would like to highlight some biggest mistakes which almost every other popular video sharing service make. Yes, that includes YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video, Yahoo Video, or just think of any major service. Just take a look on above screenshots, and try to notice what’s missing?

I know you’re wondering, what are these mistakes?

• Mistake 1: A simple “Stop” button. Can you believe that? There’s always a Pause / Play button and Scrubber, but no one ever cared about adding a simple Stop button.

  What this button should do? Well, stop the video and break the damn connection!

  If you are on a crappy connection like me, and you clicked to play a video, there’s only one way to stop it sucking all the bandwidth, refresh entire page. Flash Player does offer APIs to close an ongoing stream, but no one uses it.

  Life can be really easy for users on slow connections if there’s one more button to Stop a video in the embedded player.

• Mistake 2: It’s just my guess, but I think it’s correct that developers who program these Flash video players are on company’s corporate high speed networks. So, they click the video and it plays. What about users on slow connections?

  I don’t think they even bother to test the video playback on slow connection. Flash Player offers APIs to set the video buffer, so the video is buffered for few seconds for smooth playback experience. But again, not used. Or if used, not optimized.

  It’s even worst on Adobe own website, where I noticed videos start playing as soon as few bytes are received. The video plays choppy and on homepage intro video, there’s no Pause button… just imagine how bad impression it makes.

• Mistake 3: Tiny player control buttons. As there are more and more touch based devices in hands of users, watching videos on these cool gadgets is increasing. But what I found that designers of Flash video players do not think about if the same player is used on such device.

  For example, on my Nokia N900, a cool Maemo Linux based device which can play videos from most of the popular video services, but the controls are not optimized for touch input which makes them hard to use. And really stupid things happen, and user end up closing the video window.

  Well, the developer can detect the device and render different set of controls. But I think the easiest option would be to make one design which fits the bill for desktop + touch device optimized user controls.

• Mistake 4: I really hate when I try to quickly pause / stop a video by clicking anywhere on video, which opens a new window to service’s website. As the control buttons are already too small, the general sense is to pause the video when clicked on it. Some services do avoid this mistake, but most services just want the user to get to their website, and this seems to be the easiest option for them.

  It’s worst on small screen touch input devices, where user have to do 2-3 tries to actually pause a video. Really bad user experience.

I can just hope and wish my this blog post somehow gets to the actual designers & programmers or decision makers of Flash video players for these video services. And also they try to fix these mistakes.

Do you think there are any more mistakes? Post them in comments.

// chall3ng3r //

Just wanted to share some new updates regarding SWF2Go Pro.

• SWF2Go have now social media presence as well. You can become a fan of SWF2Go on Facebook and follow on Twitter for latest news and updates.
• We have published a small guide to make SWF2Go v2 made SIS files compatible with S60 5th Edition devices. Read it on SWF2Go wiki
• We are now running a special holiday season sale. Instantly save 20$ on SWF2Go Pro v2.0. So, what you are waiting for!!!
  

FYI, we are working on an update for SWF2Go which will be available soon. Stay tuned!

Happy holidays and have fun!

// chall3ng3r //

For last few months my friends were asking me, what me and my team at Orison Technologies is doing? Well, today I’d like to share what we’ve been cooking for last few months.

buteek.com – A new brand and webshop for latest fashion & style. The store currently offers eastern and western designs for young women and ships all around the world. Take a look and let us know your thoughts about designs, prices and overall experience.

BTW, buteek.com is running exclusive discounts to celebrate its online launch, so get busy shopping!

// chall3ng3r //

Yesterday I recieved an email from Forum Nokia informing that I am re-selected as Forum Nokia Champion. Yay!

Its a great honor to be awarded as Forum Nokia Champion for the third time in a row for my country.

Thank you Forum Nokia for making my Eid celebrations even better!

// chall3ng3r //

Today I received an announcement that the Ovi Store is live, and products are available to end users. Great job Nokia!

Orison Tecchnologies,
 
The big day is here!  Ovi Store http://store.ovi.com is open for business!  Our thanks to you for helping to fill the shelves and get the store ready for opening day so that consumers around the world can discover your applications and content on their Nokia device.

We are working on some cool stuff as well for Ovi Store

// chall3ng3r //

I think I’ve finally found a nice blog client for Mac. I’ve been searching for a while, gave try to some popular ones but no one came close to what I was looking for.

ScribeFire, its not a standalone Mac application but an add-on for Firefox. If you select to open the editor in new window, it looks much better, just like a standalone client.

Initial impressions are quite good, and this post is also been blogged from ScribeFire. I am still not very sure if this is the one, but I have a feeling that I’m gonna be using it quite well.

This was just a short review, I will be posting a detailed one after some weeks of use (hopefully )

// chall3ng3r //

I can’t imagine its been two years now since we released SWF2Go. The first ever Flash Lite developer toolkit which enabled developers to sell Flash Lite applications through regular channels.

SWF2Go Professional have made great success in these two years. We successfully released one minor version as free upgrade and one major version with exciting new features.

We are truly thankful to all the developers who have supported SWF2Go all this time and kept us motivated to bring innovative new features to Flash Lite developers.

Here I’d like to share a news. We successfully enabled Flash Lite 3.1 support in our internal builds on the 2nd day Flash Lite 3.1 was available on Adobe Labs website. The second part of the news is, there will be new features in next update, so be prepared

Have nice day!

// chall3ng3r //

Never be afraid of saying anything anymore, type it in and let your phone say it for you. But be careful, don’t cross the limits

This application is freeware, made using Flash Lite and Python for S60 (PyS60) and packaged using SWF2Go v2. It demonstrates how to make powerful and engaging mobile applications using Flash Lite and PyS60 on S60 3rd Edition platform.

Symbian S60 3rd Edition SIS files and full source code is available under free source license (no license at all, have fun ).

Download Be My Lips and read more about it at SWF2Go Wiki

Couple of screenshots:

// chall3ng3r //