8degrees of vaughan rowsell

Are you man enough?

If only I could figure out how to summon things with my mustache…

http://www.philintheblanks.com/comics/manenough.html

Cute Cats (damn it)

Ok I don’t usually succumb to forwarding on email funnies, especially not when it comes to cute cats. My mum, bless her, can always be relied upon to send on any email funnies doing the rounds, at the rate of one a day, and I usually click-scan-trash (sorry Mum), but for a change, I found her latest “cute cats” amusing, okay I laughed out loud. Now I don’t know if this is a side affect of being a house dad for the last three weeks or not, but here are some of the highlights I just had to share.

If these are NOT funny, please tell me so I know I am going insane.

Garfield (minus Garfield)

I always find it interesting trying to look at things from new perspectives, question preconceived ideas. Here is a good example of a new angle on something you already know. By taking Garfield literally out of the picture, you are left with a whole new take on the life of Jon Arbuckle. A sad and lonely modern guy… I think the strips without Garfield are funnier, but kinda sad at the same time. Check out http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/ and you will see what I mean…

Sharks with friken lasers

Check this out. I was idly browsing the shelves at a local toy shop the other day and got all nostalgic about Lego, as it brought back memories of building spaceships and worlds, my imagination started to run wild. And then I found this. Check out the sharks with friken lasers!! That can be no accident, Mr Powers. Awesome!

Sharks with friken lasers

Where old phones go

Transformed

I saw the Transformers movie last night. I thought I would feel out of place in the theatre and was one of the first to sneak in, but everyone who followed was a late twenty to thirty-something all sneaking in to see if their favourite die cast friends from the 80′s. It was funny, fast, and full of robots beating the crap out of each other. Nice. However they could have spent a bit more time developing the characters and the special bond between Optimus and Megatron. Yes I am kidding. I loved all the subtle jokes of things being more than meets the eye, all the old wrecks throughout the film of the old model transformer cars, and the fact that the only time the Autobots needed to be robots in disguise they were somewhat conspicuous on Sam’s father’s back lawn.

Anyway a good laugh. And here is another

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/07/17

AIR, Flex, Ajax – How to tell what is better

I was asked the other day to provide my expert opinion (expert = someone who has written at least 2 lines of code before) on Apollo (now released as AIR) from Adobe and how it compares to Ajax , which to be honest I had to admit to at the time I had heard nothing about AIR. But I did some digging…

Quiz. Which is a better web:

a) Adobe AIR (Apollo)
b) Flex
c) Ajax
d) other

I didn’t have to dig long as there was a bit of hype out on the wires already about the developer release of AIR. However my first Google on it provided great insight into air con. After Googling a bit longer I found it at Adobe. Now I have a rule of thumb when it comes to dealing with the hype surrounding new software and frameworks, which is; I tend to back the spin free an non commercially hyped solution when it is there and robust enough to do the job. When I get into these debates I am often painted as the mac loving, open office jiving, eclipse coding open source lover I am. But I will be up front on this one, I would back independent Ajax tools over AIR, and here is why.

It appears there is a groundswell of support for Adobe’s line of web software, Flex and now Apollo. Flex is the gui you wished your web page always had when writing online software. As it blends in the best of flash you can clearly leverage of all of the flashy goodness such as tweening, smooth frame rates, video, audio, and so on. Flex packages up flash with common UI elements and makes the business of server client comms really easy. With all this “right” it does not make the “whats wrong” list is hard to forget. Here is a run down on the the three options, Flex, Apollo (AIR), and Ajax.

Flex

There is lots right with Flex, it is easy to use and develop in once you are up to speed. What’s wrong with Flex. It is a plug in. And that’s really it. It does not rely on the core functionality of your web browser, instead you need to download and install (and update) a client side application which is the Flash player. So considering you are sticking a plugin into a webpage you are not enhancing someone’s web experience, instead you are replacing it with a non-web based experience, where web = html and a web browser. In this new window within the browser page there is no guarantee that the experience will be consistent with how a user sees web pages. For example the back button doesn’t work like it should without breaking down and hacking your flash app to cope. The UI elements are non-os level elements which means they don’t work the same and follow the usual conventions without a lot of work (scrolling with the mouse wheel, cut and paste). There are no hyper links in the traditional sense, and google can’t easily index the pages. Now I have bee developing in Flash for the last 7 years and I agree you can overcome most of the above objections with tricks and knowhow, but it isn’t easy and Flash is supposed to be easy.

Flex has the power to re-invent the web browser, within the web browser which is a problem. Web browsers are written by people who know what they are doing, and you can’t say that about every Flex and Flash developer.

Pros: Cool, an easy framework to use once you are up to speed, supported
Cons: Reinvents perfectly good software, invents new UI conventions, doesn’t work like a web page should

AIR (formally Apollo)

This one does look interesting, I admit. Apollo (dammit AIR) is trying to get around all the issues and conflicts of having an application within another application that putting flex/flash in a browser creates. However they are now trying to slove the problem by taking the web browser out of the loop. To try AIR I had to install the AIR client first, then when I came across an AIR app online, I had to download it, then install it too.

The benefits of AIR are there for sure, off-line saving of content, a more integrated library of OS level tools (file uploads, access to web cams, address books), the layering of rich content over other existing web content. These are all really fantastic and welcome, but here is the rub. They are taking the web browser out of the loop to do it. AIR is really just a cross platform desktop widget maker.

I would say Adobe are making a 10 year investment into AIR in order to take it where they want to take it. As a cross platform widget creator it has a limited life. Agreed that at the time of writing the AIR demos I played with looked like they had been knocked together in 5 minutes so I will keep looking for better things to come.

Pros: Cross platform widget maker, nice OS level integration to other apps
Cons: Yet another install (x2), not a web experience – you run applications, too new

Ajax (with your choice of framework)

Now like all good reviewers, I have saved my preferred option till last. Ajax is a fairly standard concept these days and there are plenty of powerful Ajax libraries around like prototype and an extension of it , script.aculo.us and it is common place in web application frameworks all round. Ajax is a concept, it is not (un)necessarily software and this is where my comparison gets a little askew. However the point I want to make is this. Ajax lets you do the majority of what Flex and AIR (will) let you do and It uses the power of the web browser to do it. You don’t need to install anything, users have all they need in their web browser to use it. Ajax leverage’s off of xhtml and other industry norms (ehem) to provide a unified web experience. Where it falls short is where it needs to perform non-web specific tasks, like animation, video, and audio. A good Ajax app degrades gracefully also, which means in the worst case scenario a visitor can still click and submit forms. And that is all I really need to say about Ajax. It is a simple consistent set of libraries that don’t break the web paradigm (too much). Flex and AIR don’t just break the paradigm, they smash it and jump up and down on the pieces.

Sometimes paradigms need to be broken. But a user browsing a webpage is no looking for a new paradigm. They are looking for a web site that works consistently.

Now that I have that out of the way, there is one important flaw in my comparisons that I must point out. Flex, AIR and Ajax are all different things. They are not all apples. Flex is a Framework that uses HTML, Javascript and Flash. AIR is a desktop application that pretends (almost convincingly) to be a web browser. Ajax is an idea and a simple set of libraries to back it up. And anyone who knows me knows that I like simple.

A better web experience is all about providing a consistent web experience, and “web” to me means web based protocols and languages like HTTP, XHTML, Javascript and URLs. One day Flash will be donated to the community by Adobe and then it may become a standard feature of a web browsers user experience, but while the choice is between using standard browser based features enhanced with Javascript and clever community created libraries and using a commercial software tool that “plugs in” and/or replaces the web browser, well I will have to back the knowledge, and passion of the community over Adobe’s new tools.

Pick your favourite iPhone ad

Although it will be a while before we see one here on our fine shores, we can live vicariously through the apple ads (besides Apple ads are so good you don’t need to actually own the product to be cool, just watching the ads makes you cooler). I never actually realised you could ring someone on it.

A Square-cheesie-spaghetti-kiwi Pizza

Remember when ya mum made pizza and it had spaghetti on it? Well out of pure desperation due to a lack of regular toppings for our pizza I reinvented the kiwi classic, spag and cheese pizza.

First the base. Now to be traditional you should use a pre-bought base from the frozen section of Foodtown, but I am going to make my own.

2 Cups flour
1 1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vinegar (use white)

Mix up all the white stuff with the wet stuff and mix, kneed, and roll our into a square (it cant be round)

Next for the topping grab:

a tin of Watties Spaghetti
2 tomatoes
1 onion
lotsa cheese

optional
Olives, and capers and salami.

Spread all the topping on your nice square base.

Put in oven for 20 minutes at 180-ish.

Kiwi-spag-pizza

yum yum.

Seinfeld’s Bee Movie

I just stumbled upon the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s new (well to be released in November 2007 – they think!) Bee Movie. Absolutely hilarious, really, I fell off my chair. Good to see good comedians working together for the greater comic good. Check out Eddie Izzard as the atypical director.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beemovie/