Well, you all know I’m a proponent of HTML5. I think the standards are now mature enough that we can (should/will) give up on proprietary plugins/kluges. To that end — and I think for a demo at WWDC’10 — apple has just released a page showcasing what HTML5 can do. Have a look at it and I think you’d agree that flashs’ days are numbered. I specially like the “smooth as butter” scaling on the video player. Also, as usual apple shows you step-by-step how to do all that stuff on your own. Nice . BTW, safari web browser is required to view these.

From Daring Fireball:

Update: If you go to http://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/ instead of http://www.apple.com/html5/, you can use Chrome to try the demos. Some work, but the 3D ones don’t. It still browser-sniffs to block other browsers. If you diddle with the current version of Firefox to masquerade its user agent string as Safari, two of the demos work: “Audio” and “360°”.

Okay maybe this is a bit dramatic, but I really think the days of flash as a web media presentation platform are numbered. HTML5 is coming on strong, you can already do video streaming using the new canvas tags and now here is Akihabara, a set of libraries, tools and presets to create pixelated indie-style 8/16-bit era games in Javascript that runs in your browser without any Flash plugin, making use of a small small small subset of the HTML5 features, that are actually available on many modern browsers. More info and a half dozen demo games are here. Let the old-skool arcade games begin .

If you like wallpapers like the one above — you know the abstract, grungy, urban silhouette style — but don’t know enough about Adobe packages, you’re in luck. Head over to X3Studios and use their free tool to create your very own, one of a kind, wallpaper. It’s like doing Photoshop and Illustrator by numbers, really neat. The wallpaper creation tool at X3Studios is free and requires no registration for use.

Just came across Searchme: today (thanks to Leo Laporte). It is to search engines what OSX is to GUI’s. It uses flash for interface design and it’s absolutely beautiful (and functional). It’s great to finally be able to “SEE” your search results before leaving the search site. I know there are several “preview” extensions out there for firefox that preload the website in a small popup window, but searchme is so much nicer and easier to use. If you’re doing any sort of research the ability to reorder things (hits) in a stack and to create multiple stacks is god sent. The best way to start is to try your own name, once you get familiar with the GUI, then start searching for other stuff.

Well the long awaited photoshop express has finally been released. For those of you who don’t know, adobe is finally joining the horde of online photo editing sites, with their own flash creation. Now we’re not talking full blown photoshop CS3 here (not even photoshop 3.0). There are no levels/curves/16-bit/layers/masks or any of the other advanced functions, but for a web application I think it’s great. It even allows you to suck your images across from Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa. So hop on over to photoshop express’s website and sign up for a free account. You will need flash for this (Note: I could not get it to work with flock browser under OSX, but Safari worked flowless).

I came across FotoFlexer a couple of months ago and I thought I would do a write-up at some point. Now with the addition of advanced morphing tools and image carving, I think I have to. If you haven’t heard of FotoFlexer go to their site and signup for an account. Trust me you’ll be sorry you didn’t. Their editing application is way up there in terms of advanced functionality and they integrate with pretty much any photo/social site (Facebook, myspace, photobucket, flickr, picassa, yahoo photo and even your own website). Below you’ll find some of the tools available to you when you login:

Have a look at their demo page first if you want to get an idea of the functionality. Below is a nice video tutorial on image carving, which we had covered earlier.

From the pages of really useful, well designed websites comes Mango. The webapp (flash 9.0) is simple to use, well layed out and generally works well. It offers 11 Free language courses (Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Pig Latin and Russian). So head over, sign up and learn something new. It’s FREE!!!

I came across these two sites last friday while trying to setup a projector. If you’re stuck in the field and need to get a monitor/projector calibrated fairly quick these two sites are for you. First is displaycalibration.com which has been around for a while. It’s simple and works well for setting up your devices contrast/brightness settings and doing simple colour setup. The second site is tft.vanity.dk. These guys are pro’s when it comes to tools for LCD setup. They do the standard contrast/brightness stuff (using a very cool flash app may I add). On top of that they do ghosting tests and colour bleed tests (using their flash app). This could be really useful if you want to compare a couple of monitors in the store or if you want to see how well your monitor is performing. Make sure when using the flash apps that you check out the “Menu panel” that pops up when you move your mouse to the top of the screen.

Looks like Adobe is getting ready to “expose” their Photoshop webapp. Following the release of Premier Express (AKA Youtube Remixer) earlier, Adobe Sr. VP John Loiacono unveiled Photoshop express at Photoshop World. Now don’t go crazy trying to find out the link. It’s not live yet and this image is pretty much all that seems to be out there (Source: John Nack on Adobe Blog). Now I like to see what the MS camp will come up with using their flash competitor Silverlight…..PaintOnline?

Today Microsoft finally released their flash competitor, Silverlight. I have to admit that they actually have a catchy name, but that’s not really why you’re reading this….right? I downloaded and installed the app on my MBP and it installed flawlessly under OSX 10.4.10. So far so good, next I restarted safari and visited the silverlight site. First impressions are good, it loads relatively fast and looks decent. Then I proceded to hsn.tv (one of the featured sites) and that’s where my gripes start. You see I (along with many other geeks) have this theory that MS has never really gotten a product right until at least version 3. Silverlight 1.o, at this point really feels like a rushed product. I admit that it works (at least the install and simple stuff), but the hsn.tv streaming site stopped multiple times (to rebuffer I assume) and the whole computer interface over the live video feels forced (reminds me of coding HTML for MSNTV or WebTV….YUCK).

I then tried another site, WWE. Again the plugin loaded fine but that’s where it stopped, small video screen that reminded me of Real Video 3.0 (remember them), running inside a larger background (now the background did have the video blended inside it….kinda pedestrian). I then proceded to try some of their community picked apps and had to really stop. I have to admit that I’ve seen widgets (mac, yahoo, konfabulator) that looked/felt better than these apps.

Anyways, with all the talk about MS now going after Adobe/flash and google/ajax and the general online apps movement, I have to say….Dream on. Oh and BTW goodluck uninstalling it from your MAC….Format C:\ anyone? Now I’m interested in your comments, so blast away. I want to hear from MS fanboys/girls, google fanboys/girls, flash fanboys/girls and anyone else for that matter.

This is one of the coolest clocks I’ve seen in a long time. Check it out (needs flash) or go here to download a screensaver of another version of the clock. Almost as cool as those nixie tube clocks.

Yeah, you heard right, I’m gonna show you how the mouse pointer on your computer really works. To do this we have to zoom in a portion of the screen. When you move to the next page, move the mouse to the centre of your screen and have a look. Also try clicking your mouse button. Now you know the secret…You are a true NERD