One of the first responses to the letter was by Remy Sharp (@rem) who pointed out that:

1. HTML5 apps won’t just work with touch devices, the code to handle touch events must still be written.
2. The H.264 video format is currently supported only by Safari and Chrome, but H.264 is not supported by the two biggest browsers, IE and Firefox.

Remy’s tweet also points us to this video of a presentation from Jonathan Stark, App Store is For Suckers. Stark points out some not-so-good points about the Apple Store including the fact that they subjectively turn down many apps which applied to be in the store. For example, there are many games which including war and killing of animals, but a seal-clubbing app from PETA was rejected. (In response, PETA Sends Steve Jobs Vegan Chocolate Seals!)

Web accessibility veteran and friend John Foliot of Stanford University tweeted these six “fallacies” from the letter:

1. The H.264 video format is closed & patent encumbered — not open.
2. WebKit is not the most widely deployed mobile browser; that belongs to Opera.
3. HTML5 is not finished & W3C anticipates a few more years before Ready For Prime Time.
4. WHAT WG (the incomplete HTML5) is not open either, it’s by invitation only: whatwg.org/charter
5. Two of the four major browsers do not support H.264. [see above]
6. If Apple is so open, why do they control IApp distribution with an iron fist? They don’t like your app? You’re toast. [see above]

What do you think?

Further reading:

• The Wall Street Journal’s Exclusive Interview With Adobe CEO
• Thoughts on Apple vs. Adobe
• The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

• Two 1-Gig DDR2 RAM chips – SOLD!
• Dreamweaver 8 Upgrade CD (Win/Mac) – SOLD!
• Canon CanoScan N650U : super thin scanner – SOLD!
• 3com Home Wireless Router (802.11b) (used) (Wi-Fi) – NOT SOLD

And on Craig’s List:

• Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard (upgrade) (Windows) – NOT SOLD re-listed below)

Addendum Aug 3, 2009

Now listed! redhat Linux 7 OS Standard with CDs, original box, and even the stickers!

Addendum Aug 8, 2009

Now listed! Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard (Windows; upgrade)

• Mobile web usage doubled in 2008.
• Nokia is the world’s largest digital camera producer (as they are the biggest mobile phone manufacturer).
• App written by Google in HTML5 for iPhone and Android is sweet.
• Mobilize Don’t Miniaturize
• Need to read up on the W3C Geolocation API
• Since 2003, web page file size has tripled!
• Only 1% of iPhone Apps are used long-term.
• For usability testing, research only what is necessary.
• Don’t put branding ahead of users.

The day before the conference, I took and vacation day and brought my wife and kids up from Cupertino to “the city” for a mini-vacation. We stayed at a very nice hotel for which we got a great rate through HotWire.com. Here’s a Flickr album of the family portion of the trip.

Computer nerd area

Exhibit Hall

Dennis at Golden Gate bridge

• Live View
• Code Navigator
• CSS best practices
• Code hinting for Ajax and JavaScript frameworks
• HTML data sets
• Photoshop Smart Objects
• Subversion integration
• AIR support
• New user interface

Recently, I discovered couple of specific text coding features that I believe are not included. I don’t believe there is a command for wrapping a span or code tag around text. In the Insert panel (normally the bar above the page view), there is a text input sub-menu that contains buttons for blockquotes, preformatted text, lists, definition lists, etc., but lacks the span or code tags.

So, if you use Dreamweaver’s code editor a lot, like me, you can add a couple of custom commands to wrap a span or code tag around text. This can easily be done with the Snippet feature. To create it, open Dreamweaver and:

1. Select the Snippets tab in the Files panel.
2. Select the New Snippet icon.
3. Enter as name (such as “wrap a Span”).
4. Enter a Description if you’d like, it’s optional.
5. Leave as wrap selection.
6. In before block, enter “<span>”.
7. In after block, enter “</span>”.
8. Select OK. The custom Snippet is created.

Now to use it, just wipe-select some code and double-click the Snippet in the Panel (or select the Snippet and click the Insert button at the bottom left of the panel).

Podcast #53: Interview with Andrew Kirkpatrick

We used Skype to record the podcast, again, and it sure makes it easy when folks are separately geographically–I’m in the Bay area, Ross is in Ann Arbor, and Andrew is in the Boston area. Scheduling is a bit tricky because of the time zone differences and everyone’s busy schedule, but that went fine since I planned a few weeks out. It’s still a bit difficult to get the audio levels right, though, and unfortunately we experienced this problem a bit on this podcast…check it out and let me know what you think…

The sessions varied from Ajax security, to Javascript frameworks, to advanced techniques with forms. Fortunately, there was even a session on Ajax and accessibility, given by Orbitz. I also was happy to meet Aaron Gustafson, and attend his session relating to progressive enhancement. There was definitely a concentrate of topics around Javascript frameworks (a.k.a. libraries, toolkits) such as jQuery, Dojo, Prototype, and more.

On a personal note, I decided to make a family vacation out of the event, so I booked a hotel a few blocks from the conference, and brought the wife and kids. Yes, it was tough dragging around two boys–who are barely toddlers–but nonetheless it was worth it.

Union Square in downtown San Francisco: